Pastoral Gifts

Once a month our ministry has a set date to give our pastor a monetary gift. If the amount is not a certain number, an additional check is written out of the church account. Is this legal and should the pastoral gift be taxable? The date for this love gift is the same month after month. I need some clarification.

Vickey's Reply

It is legal and taxable income for the Pastor.

Comments for Pastoral Gifts

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personal love gifted
by: Anonymous

I am a pastor of a small.church...up til now I have been an employee...we want to change that and just leave a love offerings box at the back of the church...with instructions to make any checks out to me personally and that these will not be tax deductible and that I will include them in my personal.tax liability...also I will personally pay all the church bills with this money and other money that I personally earn in other employment/business...any left over amount will be my compensation...guidance please!
Love Offering Guidelines
by: Vickey

As I stated on my love offering page, there are not any specific written guidelines from the IRS that states in black and white when a love offering is considered taxable or not.

The guidelines I have provided on that page come from studying prior IRS cases regarding love offerings and researching material written by well respected CPAs.

However...general rule of thumb is:
Contributions to individuals are not tax deductible and love offerings to ministers are usually considered taxable income.

(Updated: After reading this post again, Marcus, I believe you are right. If the church is taking up the monthly love offering and has complete control of the offering (even adding to it) to supplement the Pastor's income...the contributions would be tax deductible for the donors.)

P.S. Please keep posting your comments, Marcus. I like your insight and I know my readers enjoy hearing from someone other than me all the time. Church accounting has many gray areas such as love offerings and different opinions are very much appreciated and welcomed :-)
Taxability of Gits to Pastor
by: Marcus in Texas

Wouldn't the "rule" be that if those contributing toward the gift to the pastor consider such contributions to be tax deductible contributions, then the monetary gift received by the pastor would have to be consider taxable income by the pastor?

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