The IRS

Policies

CHURCH FINANCES

Annual IRS To-Do List

At the Beginning of Each Year....

Check with your pastor(s) to see if they want to change their pension withholdings. The General Treasurer or your conference treasurer can tell you the minimum amount which needs to be withheld each year. If the pension withholding is changed, fill out a new form and have the employee sign it. Then file it in the personnel file.

By January 31, Do the Following:

W-2. Give all employees a W-2 wage and tax statement. This applies even to persons who make very little during the year (such as a secretary who starts at the end of December, and earns only a hundred dollars or so). Anyone on the payroll during the year gets a W-2.

1099-MISC. Give 1099-MISC for each independent contractor paid $600 or more during the year for services provided to the church. Such persons could be lay evangelists, paid pianists, paid nursery workers, carpenters, plumbers, etc. They could also be persons to whom you paid rent (for example, your church rents office space, or rents yard or office equipment). Such persons must have already completed a W9 form, which the church needs for its own reporting. (You don’t need to give 1099-MISC forms to corporations--only individuals.)

The law requires that persons receive these statements by January 31. One copy goes to the employee, one to the IRS, and one into the church’s files.

By the Last Day of February--

• Send Copy A of all W-2s issued for the previous year to the Social Security Administration, along with the W-3 transmittal form.
• Send to the IRS the 1099s, along with the 1096 transmittal summary form.

By December 31--