direct clergy healthcare payment

Fund Accounting, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Payroll

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stinnocent
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Feb 21, 2022 12:37 am

direct clergy healthcare payment

Post by stinnocent »

I am just finalizing my church's transition to PowerChurch and am wondering how to handle a payroll-related issue. My parish is relatively small and cannot yet provide health insurance to our pastor. However, in an effort to move in that direction, a few years ago we set up a separate checking account for the purposes of paying for our pastor's healthcare related expenses. He has a debit card for the account, which he uses to pay for healthcare related expenses, and has insurance premiums paid regularly from it. I am inclined to think disbursements from this "Clergy Healthcare" account should be processed through Payroll, since it is surely a taxable payment. But the checking account from which the payment is made is different than the checking account from which his bi-monthly paychecks are made. And I don't see a way to change the checking account from which the payroll is deducted on a one-time basis. Any insight is much appreciated!

NeilZ
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Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:20 am
Location: Dexter NM
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Re: direct clergy healthcare payment

Post by NeilZ »

stinnocent wrote:
Mon Feb 21, 2022 12:52 am
I am just finalizing my church's transition to PowerChurch and am wondering how to handle a payroll-related issue. My parish is relatively small and cannot yet provide health insurance to our pastor. However, in an effort to move in that direction, a few years ago we set up a separate checking account for the purposes of paying for our pastor's healthcare related expenses. He has a debit card for the account, which he uses to pay for healthcare related expenses, and has insurance premiums paid regularly from it. I am inclined to think disbursements from this "Clergy Healthcare" account should be processed through Payroll, since it is surely a taxable payment. But the checking account from which the payment is made is different than the checking account from which his bi-monthly paychecks are made. And I don't see a way to change the checking account from which the payroll is deducted on a one-time basis. Any insight is much appreciated!
FWIW ... I agree, this should have been setup as an employer liability in Payroll. However, because of the way it was originally setup with the pastor, trying to correct it now will entail additional steps.

What should have been done is to issue the pastor a reimbursement based on a copy of the health insurance monthly bill (or annual bill) and the pastor would then pay out of his own checking account, not the church's.

Since he's using a different checking account than the standard operating one, you would have to transfer the funds to that other account using a separate transaction.

Not knowing how you currently supply funds to that second checking account, I can't give you any possible scenario to follow.
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

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