Churches Seeking the U.S. Government’s 'Employee Retention Credit'
By Ken Sloane
Bryan Mills, Interim General Counsel at the General Council on Finance & Administration (GCFA) has provided the following caution for churches planning on requesting the Employee Retention Credit for church staff.
"Unfortunately, the definition of ‘wages’ used in the context of the Employee Retention Credit provided by the CARES Act is one that, in other contexts in the Tax Code, does not include amounts paid to ministerial employees. There was some initial hope that the IRS would use a different interpretation of the term for this credit, but that hope was dashed when it released its FAQ (see example 1 in question 58).
"Compensation paid by your church to ministerial employees cannot be used in calculating the amount of credit it can claim."
You may download this document of guidance prepared by GCFA and Wespath.
Click here to explore more helpful GCFA resources on COVID-19 for churches.
Click here to explore Discipleship Ministries COVID-19 resources.
Ken Sloane is the Director of Stewardship & Generosity for Discipleship Ministries of The United Methodist Church.
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