Pastor's W2 with housing allowance. Normally, boxes 3-6 are left blank; we did piecework outside of normal salary, there is a small amount of $ in 3-6. How do we add?

[AmyC]

Yes, those boxes are usually blank, but not always. The W2 should be typed in as you received it. If the extra pieces created the boxes 3-6 then it is also in your box 1 wages. No need to add anything.

[kaitlynsbarker]

Thanks. Turbo tax won’t let me complete it though because it says there is an error- I can’t select religious employment and also have boxes 3-6 filled out.

[AmyC]

The program let me keep going when I tried. It did not like it, but it did it. The program complained. I marked that is was for clergy employment and continued. I was able to enter the parsonage and the rest. It did not carry the excess Medicare and Social Security to Schedule 3. It did not cause any actual trouble.

The program is just not happy with the W2. Churches are notorious for having trouble filling out tax forms correctly.

Best solution is to have the church issue two W2s. One for clergy and for the "other". You can enter it as it is and ignore the whining of the program.

[kaitlynsbarker]

Thank you so much for your help. I got to the final page, File a Return, and it will not let me move forward. It just keeps telling me to Check this Entry - Housing W2 box cannot be checked if social security or medicare tax has been withheld. I pressed "continue" and it just says "We need more information." 

[AmyC]

We are back to needing to W2 forms then. Can you manually subtract the income that goes with the boxes 3-6? Create a second W2. 

For example: You have one W2

Box 1 $10,000

Box 2 $100

Box 3 $1,000

Box 4 $62

Box 5 $1,000

Box 6 $14.50

Turn it into 2 W2 forms:

W2 for non-clergy would become:

Box 1 $1,000

Box 2 $100

Box 3 $1,000

Box 4 $62

Box 5 $1,000

Box 6 $14.50

Then the clergy W2 would become:

Box 1 difference of $9,000

Box 2 - I put above so nothing here

Box3-6 all empty

You use the same EIN, church information, just dividing up the W2 so the program can understand the differences.