Tax Court Rules Methodist Minister an Employee

• Key point: Many ministers would be considered by the civil courts to be employees for federal income tax reporting purposes.

• A federal appeals court affirmed a Tax Court decision finding a Methodist minister to be an employee rather than self-employed for federal income tax reporting purposes. The court adopted the Tax Court's decision as its own. This decision is reviewed fully in a feature article appearing in the November-December 1994 issue of this newsletter. One of the three judges dissented from the court's ruling. The dissenting judge observed:

The majority adopts the opinion of the Tax Court, finding [the pastor] to be an employee of the United Methodist Church for federal income tax purposes, but does not justify the different result reached by the Tax Court, on the same day it decided the instant case, in concluding that a Pentecostal pastor with Methodist roots, he ...