12 Dec Calculating Self Employment Taxes for Clergy Staff
The Self-Employment Taxes that most members of the Clergy must pay quarterly are actually made up of two different taxes:
- Old-age, survivors and disability insurance (also known as “OASDI” or the more commonly used term “Social Security”)
- Medicare taxes
OASDI taxes are calculated as 12.4% of your income. The maximum wage limit on OASDI is $132,900 in 2019 ($137,700 in 2020), meaning that you will not need to pay OASDI tax on wages you earn over $132,900 in 2019.
Medicare taxes are calculated at 2.9% of your income. There is no wage limit to this, meaning that you will have to pay it on all wages you earn.
For most Clergy, this means they will pay a total of 15.3% of their self-employed wages to the government for self-employment taxes. Those who earn over $132,900 in 2019 will pay 15.3% on wages up to $132,900, and then 2.9% on everything over that.
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