by Patrick Bradley: The US government has approved a stimulus package to help small businesses and nonprofits across the country. And it’s OK to use the Payroll Protection Program for church plants.

Have you seen the daily webinars about this? It’s been a fast moving target since the government wrote it, approved it and enacted it in about a week. Everybody’s scrambling to interpret and understand how it works and what to do.

Part of the larger CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security), loans are offered to small businesses, nonprofit and churches to help prevent layoffs and pay cuts. And the loans may be forgiven up to 100%. Others have done a better job of explaining the ins and outs of the Payroll Protection Program for church plants (see below), so I won’t duplicate that here.

It feels a bit like the California Gold Rush. The government has funded $350B, but that’s not nearly enough to provide relief for all the businesses, nonprofits and churches that will be applying. So it’s going to be a first come, first served situation.

After much watching and reading, here are my…

Tips & Tactics

Finish your research yesterday

This all happened so fast, but many fellow believers have already put together some great resources. Here are resources that helped me:

Vanderbloemen’s various Live events and free resourcesECFA CARES Impact on ChurchesUS Chamber of Commerce Emergency Loans Guide & Checklist

Talk to your bank on Thursday, April 2

They are scrambling to be ready same as everybody else. And you want to deal with a banker that’s up to speed and ready to go when the program opens on Friday, April 3.

The program is backed by the US Small Business Administration (SBA), but administered by banks and other lenders.

Make an appointment to come back with your application Friday morning.

Have your paperwork ready on Thursday, April 2

Download and complete the Paycheck Protection Program Application Form and get it filled out. They only just made it available Tuesday evening, March 31.

Dig up all of your payroll expenses back to February 2019. To help compile everything, here is a free spreadsheet from my friend Sean Havera at Unite Community Church. He built this for the Payroll Protection Program for church plants and offers it as-is and on condition that you consult with your accountant and/or lender on all final calculations.

Download free PPP calculation spreadsheet

You’ll be averaging your payroll from last year. Common opinion is that if you haven’t been running payroll that long, you can average the months that you did have payroll expenses. That’s great for the newest church planters!

Apply at your bank Friday Morning, April 3

Seriously, you want to be at the front of the line.

If you’ve decided to apply, I hope these tips & tactics help with applying for the Payroll Protection Program for church plants.

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Source: Payroll Protection Program for Church Plants – Tips & Tactics

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by Patrick Bradley: Almost every state has an ongoing nonprofit annual report requirement for nonprofit corporations such as churches. This is business you need to take care of regularly. Or this could happen…

Almost every year I get a panicked phone call or email from one of my churches. They’ve gotten a notice that their corporation was suspended or dissolved and they don’t always understand why. The nonprofit annual report has always been the problem. Or, rather, them not filing one when it was due.

In case you were still wondering, getting your corporation get shut down by the state is not a good idea. It’s usually fixable, but what a hassle! You’ll spend about as much time getting it reinstated as you did filing the original paperwork to get incorporated in the first place.

Filing your nonprofit annual report on time is a much easier way to go.

…

Did this help you? Would you mind forwarding to a friend in ministry that might need it?

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Source: What Happens When You Don’t File a Nonprofit Annual Report with Your State

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by Patrick Bradley: Children’s ministry safety in your church plant is serious business. But it doesn’t have to be mysterious. Here are 20 practical steps to stellar children’s ministry safety:

No question, Jesus holds children in high regard. I’d say that churches in the US do, too, though we haven’t historically done the best collective job at protecting kids in our churches.

I pray that never happens in your church. To that end, here are some things you can do that aren’t terribly expensive (many are free) that can significantly reduce the chance that abuse will occur. It’s our job as church leaders to do everything we can to create safe environments for kids in our churches.

Children’s Ministry Safety for Your Workers

Staff and ministry workers are the first line of defense in keeping our kids safe. Make sure to get trusted people into those roles and get them trained:

Create a volunteer application form that includes a consent to run a background check – make sure every applicant fills it out & signs it
Run background checks for every adult that will be with the kids, and rerun background checks annually
Train volunteers in abuse awareness (your insurance company and/or background check provider can help with this)
Know whether your volunteers are mandatory reporters and train leaders in reporting procedures
Train volunteers in all of these security procedures
Do something to identify your children’s workers (ID badges, T-Shirts, etc.)
Get at least one person trained in first aid and have a basic first aid kit in the children’s area
Have a children’s ministry floater (or several) that can bounce between classrooms and generally be available to help

Children’s Ministry Safety for the Parents and Guardians

Parents should be in the loop and feel good about their child’s safety:

Create a brief handout that explains your children’s ministry practices & policies to parents – make this available at your check-in table especially for parents who bring their kids for the first time
Create a plan for giving new parents an escorted tour of the classroom their kid(s) will be in
Create a check-in and check-out process to make sure kids leave with the right adult(s) – also coach your classroom workers with a polite but firm script for when the process needs to be enforced
Work out a system to notify parents during the service – considering texting them since pretty much everyone has a mobile phone these days

Children’s Ministry Safety and Your Facility

Chances are good you’re meeting in a rented facility, which often presents unique security challenges:

Work out how to keep kids corralled in their “rooms”, especially if that’s a hallway or the flat area in front of the movie theater screen
Figure out how to secure any exits or potential hiding places from both unauthorized entry and from kids sneaking out – while not blocking fire escapes
Make a plan for keeping unauthorized adults out of the rooms (including parents) – again, coach your people with a polite but firm script
Decide ahead how you’re going to accommodate a kid needing to go potty – the classroom teacher shouldn’t be alone with the rest of the kids and the kid going potty shouldn’t be alone with an adult
Determine how to manage teacher-to-student ratios for different age levels – when is each classroom too full to take more kids and when is a classroom shut down for lack of supervision
Create an emergency/fire escape plan and train your teachers and workers in what to do

Children’s Ministry Safety for the Church

Should an incident occur, you need to have a plan in place for what to do:

Create reporting procedures for everything from kids needing a band-aid to kids going fisticuffs to alleged abuse
Know how to contact your church insurance carrier for help handling a crisis

Wow, that’s a whole lotta stuff to get in place for your church plant child security procedures! But when it saves one kid from being abused or helps one kid escape an abusive situation, it will be worth it. Don’t you think?

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Source: 20 Steps to Children’s Ministry Safety for Your Church Plant

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by Patrick Bradley: Turns out there are lots of church plant health insurance options. It’s still a little complicated, but you have more options than ever to choose from. Here’s an overview as a springboard to your research.

If you’re a new church hiring staff or an established church that’s never offered health insurance before, you have two basic paths to choose from: offer nothing (but pay employees well enough that they can get an individual plan), or offer an employer plan to church employees.

Individual Plan Options (Church Offers No Plan)

Small businesses with fewer that 50 employees are not required to offer health insurance. So in lieu of a group plan, the church could increase employees’ pay up front to offset the burden. You just don’t get to stipulate that it must be spent on health insurance. And it is taxable income to them.

In all of these scenarios, church employees would have to arrange for their own insurance.

Employees’ options include:

1. Get Insurance through an Obamacare Exchange

Start at healthcare.gov  It will help you find your state’s exchange or direct you to the federal exchange if your state doesn’t have one. You’ll have lots of options to choose from. Bonus: ministerial housing allowance does not count as income for Obamacare, so you’re more likely to get a government subsidy to help pay your premiums.

…

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Source: 11 Church Plant Health Insurance Options (yes, eleven!)

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The following is a guest post by Holly Goff, production manager at d2design, which specializes in direct mail solutions tailored to churches and their goals.

Chances are, you’re planning to use direct mail at some point in your church’s marketing plan. It’s cost-effective and maintains great response rates:

Once again, direct mail response rates rank stronger than digital channels, sometimes exponentially: at 5.1% for house lists and 2.9% for prospect lists, mail response rates consistently exceed the 2% response rate of all digital channels combined.” – IWCO Direct

The fact is, a significant percentage of millennials like mail. It has a built-in emotional response factor. Gallup reported that 36% of people under the age of 30 look forward to checking their mailboxes every day. What’s more, 95% of 18-to-29-year-olds have a positive response to receiving personal cards and letters.” – Forbes

But while direct mail is relatively inexpensive for anyone, churches can file online for USPS nonprofit pricing and lower postage costs even more.

Church Nonprofit Authorization Number

A nonprofit authorization number (NPA) allows an organization to send standard bulk mail (a large quantity of identical pieces, such as a direct mail postcard) at a lower postage price. NPA numbers are FREE, applied for through the post office, and kept on file in a national USPS database. But while useful, it’s sometimes hard to get consistent information about these numbers even at the post office, depending on the branch’s size or the particular clerk you encounter.

Most importantly, an NPA number is NOT the same as a tax ID or a bulk mail permit number. An NPA number proves that your organization is a nonprofit entity and can mail at a lower postage rate. (Note that if you’re mailing on your own, you’ll also need a bulk mail permit, for which you’ll pay an annual fee. However, marketing firms such as d2design typically use their own bulk permit number for your mailings.)

Established Churches: How to Find Your Church’s NPA

If you are an established church that might have done mailings in years past, you may or may not have an NPA number. It depends on whether any of your predecessors applied for one. Call the post office to check. If you are a brand new church plant, you don’t automatically have an NPA number.

Verify Your Information on File

If your post office confirms that you do have an NPA number, verify the church name and address associated with it. This is important because the name and return address on your postcard MUST match exactly what’s on file with the post office.

For example, did you brand yourself as “XYZ Church” in your community, but your legal corporate name is “XYZ Church of the Presumptuous Assumption”? The post office will only use your church’s full legal name as it appears on your Articles of Incorporation that you submit to them.

If you’ve changed your church’s name, you’ll need to complete a 6015 form to update the national nonprofit database, even if you’ve already told the rest of the USPS about your name change.

A Warning

Church plants sometimes try to use their sending church’s NPA number. This works sometimes, but it’s risky. First, your card’s return address will be the other church’s information. And let’s say your sending church is in Wisconsin, planting your new church in Arizona. That’s confusing.

Second, this discrepancy could cause your cards to be rejected. That’s money down the drain to reprint thousands of postcards. And since your cards are time sensitive, you may not have enough time for the reprint, so you risk missing the window of opportunity altogether.

Get your own number to use when you need it.

Church Plants: Now You Can File Online for Your Church NPA

If you’ve determined that you need an NPA number, file your application and expect to receive it back in 2 to 6 weeks. You can take a completed hard copy of the 3624 application form to your local post office or file online for USPS nonprofit pricing by taking the following steps:

Register for a free Business Customer Gateway account
Once you’re registered and logged in, select Mailing Services from the left nav bar
Select Postal Wizard
Select 3624 under Complete Customer Service Forms
Complete the application

You just saved a trip to the post office!

More on Church Plant Postal Permits

How Much Money CAN Church Plant Postal Permits Save You?
How to save $450 by not applying for a bulk mail permit but still getting all the benefits
If you’re going old school, Which USPS paper forms to file, plus filing tips

The post How to Get a Church Nonprofit Authorization Number and Save Thousands appeared first on Church Planting Tactics.

Source: How to Get a Church Nonprofit Authorization Number and Save Thousands

The post How to Get a Church Nonprofit Authorization Number and Save Thousands appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Patrick Bradley: If you’re sending out direct mail to announce the launch of your weekly services, save $450 and don’t open a church bulk mail permit (but still get all the benefits using this secret).

There are two permits required to get the lowest postage rate for your church plant’s mailing:

the church bulk mail permit
the nonprofit pricing classification

Any business or organization can open their own bulk mail permit (account), but it costs $225 to apply and another $225 each year (find current pricing here).

The secret trick is that the bulk mail permit doesn’t have to belong to you.

Pros of Not Having a Church Bulk Mail Permit

There are several direct mail vendors that specialize in helping churches. They each have their own bulk mail permit, so you just piggyback on theirs. You still need your own nonprofit pricing classification, but they’re already paying their own $225 a year so you don’t have to.

This is a no-brainer. You don’t want to print and prepare your own direct mail anyway. It requires way too much work and industry knowledge that you don’t have time to learn. The only thing the $450 really gets you is your own indicia (keep reading).

Let a vendor that specializes in church mailings do all the work. You’re already $450 ahead if you do, not to mention all the meetings you can have with people because you weren’t spending your ministry time preparing the mailing yourself. You have way more important things to be doing!

Cons of Not Having a Church Bulk Mail Permit

There is only one minor drawback that I’m aware of: the indicia (that non-stamp stamp thingy) has to be the vendor’s.

So instead of:

[your town] permit ##

…it would read:

[vendor’s town] permit ##

If you’re planting in Wisconsin but the vendor is in Hawaii, some recipients might get confused, but probably only the few detail-oriented people who will actually notice.

The good news is that the return address on the cards will be your church’s. In fact, it has to be.

If you can live with using their indicia to save $450, go this route. But remember, you still need to file for own nonprofit pricing classification.

More on Church Plant Postal Permits

How Much Money CAN Church Plant Postal Permits Save You?
How to Get a Church Nonprofit Authorization Number, including how to apply online (coming soon!)
If you’re going old school, Which USPS paper forms to file, plus filing tips

The post How to Save $450 by NOT Getting a Church Bulk Mail Permit appeared first on Church Planting Tactics.

Source: How to Save $450 by NOT Getting a Church Bulk Mail Permit

The post How to Save $450 by NOT Getting a Church Bulk Mail Permit appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Patrick Bradley: In addition to your community service and word of mouth marketing, you’re thinking about sending out direct mail postcards to your community to announce the Grand Opening of your church plant. You could potentially save thousands of dollars in one mailing with church plant postal permits.

A 1st class postcard stamp costs 35¢ these days (Summer 2018). You do get priority delivery, but if you want to mail 20,000 pieces, you’re looking at a tab of $7,000 just for the postage. Yikes!

Church Plant Postal Permits: Bulk Mail

The US Post Office allows any business or organization to get a bulk mail permit. If you’re mailing more than 200 identical pieces, you get a discounted rate. Their pricing formula defies understanding, but the gist of it is that the more work you do for them (sorting, etc.) the lower the postage price they give you.

If a business hits all of the post office variables right, they can get postage in the 16¢ – 20¢ range! Now 20,000 postcards can cost you as little as $3,200. Woohoo!

There are some trade-offs, though:

One of the factors is mail route ‘saturation’: every box on the carrier’s route must get a card
You don’t get priority delivery: the carrier technically has a 2 week window to deliver the cards (but they usually hit on days 2 and 3)
There’s a $225 application fee and a $225 annual fee, so you’re out $450 in the first year (find out how to save the $450 below)

The Double Discount for Nonprofits

But wait, there’s more! The Post Office offers nonprofits an even lower rate, a sort of double discount. Now if you hit all of their formula just right, your postage can be as low as 8.3¢ each (as of 2018). So mailing to the same 20,000 families now costs only $1,660 in postage. Woah!

Applying for the nonprofit discount is tricky, though, because new churches are in a catch 22: you want the discount to announce your Grand Opening, but the Post Office says you’re not a church until you’ve had your Grand Opening.

Having your 501c3 Determination Letter from the IRS smooths this over, but most brand new churches won’t get that back from the IRS in time.

The USPS came to a compromise, though: “If an IRS exemption letter is not available, a complete financial statement from an independent auditor (such as a CPA) substantiating that the organization is a nonprofit [can be submitted].” Wow, that’s not burdensome to young churches at all.

We’ll deal with all of that in this series:

More on Church Plant Postal Permits

How to save $450 by not applying for a bulk mail permit but still getting all the benefits
How to Get a Church Nonprofit Authorization Number, including how to apply online (coming soon!)
If you’re going old school, Which USPS paper forms to file, plus filing tips

Photo by Ethan Hoover on Unsplash

The post How Much Money CAN Church Plant Postal Permits Save You? appeared first on Church Planting Tactics.

Source: How Much Money CAN Church Plant Postal Permits Save You?

The post How Much Money CAN Church Plant Postal Permits Save You? appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Patrick Bradley: A church planter challenged me recently on whether church boards have to use Robert’s Rules of Order to conduct meetings. I started digging around and opened a whole can of worms.

His question came from a common place: I haven’t met a church planter yet that likes (understands?) Robert’s Rules. But it also came with a theological challenge – where are Robert’s Rules of Order described or modeled in the Bible?

Good question.

Biblical Reference Points

Without an in-depth exegesis of all subject passages, I don’t think the Bible has overwhelming instruction about how to run church board meetings. For that matter, it doesn’t have a lot to say directly about Church Boards as such.

The New Testament has plenty to say about, and to, Elders, and describes leadership by a plurality of Elders. But it seems to only hint about how they made decisions as a group (for example, see Acts 6:1-7).

So for our purposes here, let’s define a church board meeting as “how the church leaders make a group decision”.

What are Robert’s Rules?

Created in 1876 by US Army officer Henry Robert, he based them on how the US Congress conducted business and passed laws. You’ve experienced some version of them when you hear things like:

“I move that we approve…”
“I second the motion.”
“Let’s table that discussion.”
“All in favor, say ‘aye’.”

This way of running church board meetings is the most common in the US. But rarely have I seen it strictly followed and enforced.

Other Models Available

Turns out there’s not just one or two other options, but a whole spectrum of approaches to running board meetings. Here are some top alternatives very briefly described:

Consensus Process

Every article I’ve found has associated this approach with the Quakers.

“Consensus decision-making is a group decision-making process in which group members develop, and agree to support a decision in the best interest of the whole.” Wikipedia

PRO: buy-in is high because everyone agrees to the decision after being heard

CON: can take considerable time to reach consensus

DEMOCRACY 2.0

If you like the spirit of Robert’s Rules, this one might be for you.

“DEMOCRACY 2.0 is a new ultra lightweight rules of order system for democratic meetings, tailored to fit the needs of small to medium-sized non-profits, and designed for practical use by ordinary people facing everyday realities.” SocialFish

PRO: based more on principles than rules, easily understood

CON: it’s still based on democratic process, which may or may not fit your theology

Dynamic Facilitation

“A dynamic facilitator follows the group’s interest and energy wherever it goes, so a group often ends up in a very different place than they started, frequently with a collective breakthrough of some kind.” Co-Intelligence

PRO: great at outside-the-box creative solutions to impossible problems or difficult people, fosters true dialog and everyone being heard

CON: requires trained/skilled facilitator

Martha’s Rules of Order

This is a sort of hybrid approach that embraces both consensus and formal voting, “a way to decide whether or not an issue [is] important enough to warrant taking the extra time to reach consensus.” TopsSoft

PRO: simple, combines best of both consensus and Robert’s Rules

CON (potentially): it was originally created for condo/HOA boards so it’s built for a voting membership

Bottom Line

So where I land on whether church boards have to use Robert’s Rules of Order is: no.

But it’s not only just the Bible that’s at play here. Perhaps the main reason for having a “church board”  in the US is because the group of believers wants to be organized under the laws and benefit from the tax code of the government. Romans chapter 13 seems to make allowance for that.

And anyone who serves on the board of any US nonprofit has a duty to lead and serve well. Random decision-making methodology and sloppy records won’t cut it.

Pick some system and use it. Include that decision in your meeting minutes. Be intentional and consistent in how you make group decisions. And above all, keep good records!

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Source: Do Church Boards Have to Use Robert’s Rules of Order?

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by Patrick Bradley: The tricksters are back at it, mailing out a fake annual report notice to unsuspecting churches. Here’s what they’re up to, how to spot it, and what to do.

Depending on your state (see my growing reference list), your church corporation has to file some kind of annual renewal. It lets the state know that you’re still active and gives you a chance to update them on mailing address, current officers and stuff like that.

It’s a pretty simple process:

You get a legitimate reminder from your state to file your annual report
You go to the Secretary of State’s website (or Corporation Commission in a few states)
You follow the link to file your annual report
It typically takes you less than 10 minutes and will usually cost $30 or less

There may be a few states that have a snail mail paper form still, but the process is basically the same.

What The Tricksters Are Doing

Some unscrupulous business gets a list of corporations off the state’s website (they’re public records). Then they mail you a fake annual report notice that offers to keep you compliant and avoid steep penalties. They use fear and intimidation to scare you into sending them payment.

But here’s the tricky part: what they’re doing isn’t technically illegal. The fines they threaten you with are the real fines the state will charge if you don’t file your own annual report. And if you go 2 cycles in a row without filing, most states will administratively dissolve your corporation. The tricksters threaten you with legitimate information (that shouldn’t be very threatening in reality).

And when you send them your money and basic information, like addresses and officers, they really will file your annual report for you. But they’ll charge you hundreds of dollars to do what you can do for yourself for less than $30. In less than 10 minutes. Which is probably less than you’d spend sending your info to the tricksters.

They count on your forgetting exactly what you’re supposed to do and when. I mean, it only comes up once a year, right? In a very few states it’s every 2 or even 5 years.

What to Look For

Here are the giveaways of a fake annual report notice. It will:

come in a very official-looking envelope, often stamped with a warning/threat on the outside
be on very official-looking letterhead
have a seal (logo) that is reminiscent of your state’s official seal
use an official-sounding name like “Corporation Compliance Service Division”

But the dead giveaway is that they have to include a disclaimer somewhere in the fine print that they’re not the government or affiliated with any government agency. Because if they don’t, they’re flirting with committing mail fraud, a serious federal offense.

It’s a big enough problem that some states are posting public notices about it (read California’s here).

What to Do About a Fake Annual Report Notice

The best thing you can do to avoid getting tricked by a fake annual report notice is to take 10 minutes to figure out what your state’s requirement is, and when yours specifcally is due. Then set a recurring calendar reminder several weeks before it’s due. You can even include a hyperlink to the state’s filing page in your calendar event so you can just click through and file it.

As for the fake notice: shred it. And maybe do a little happy dance. They haven’t duped you!

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Source: Beware of a Fake Annual Report Notice in Your Mail

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by Patrick Bradley: Some churches used to reimburse health insurance premiums as a benefit to their employees. The passage of the Affordable Care Act initially made that illegal – they wanted all employers to offer group health insurance to their employees. But now the 21st Century Cures Act has made it possible for churches to reimburse health insurance premiums again.

This fix was around in 2017, but it flew under my radar. This stuff just won’t stop changing! Here’s what I’m learning:

The Old Way to Reimburse

Before the ACA, group health insurance plans were stupid-expensive if your church only had a handful of employees. And rates were based on things like the age of your oldest employee and whether any of the employees or their dependents had preexisting health conditions. That made it impractical for many smaller churches to offer group insurance.

Some churches had figured out that they could reimburse their employees for health insurance premiums. It didn’t count as income to the employee (at least not taxable income), so it was kind of like the employee had to get their own individual policy but the church “paid” for it.

Starting in 2015, the penalty for continuing an arrangement like this was $100/day/employee. Many churches stopped offering any kind of plan or reimbursement and the employees were forced to go to their ACA insurance exchange.

The New Way (QSEHRA)

Now churches, within certain limits, can return to a kind of reimbursement arrangement.

Church Eligibility

For this to work, your church has to:

Have fewer than 50 employees
NOT offer a health insurance option

Employee Eligibility

If you reimburse health insurance premiums through QSEHRA, you must cover employees except:

employees younger than 25
part-time or seasonal workers (though can opt to cover them)
employees in their first 90 days on the job
…and a few other categories that would be unusual at a church

So basically you have to offer the same benefit to all full-time employees. You can’t discriminate between clergy and non-clergy. But “same benefit” can be a percentage such that each employee doesn’t necessarily get the same dollar amount[2].

Rules

Some other rules for a QSEHRA:

2018 Reimbursements can’t exceed $10,250/yr for family coverage ($854.17/mo) or $5,050/yr for employee-only ($420.83/mo)
Employees have to maintain and prove that they have Minimum Essential Coverage – and those popular health care cost sharing ministries don’t count
Employees have to turn in receipts (which means churches have to review & pay them)
Your church will have to adopt a formal QSEHRA plan document
…and probably a few other rules, too

Drawbacks

Converting to a QSEHRA

If your church has been around long enough to have done things the Old Way, you may fixed it by just increasing everyone’s salary by the amount you’d been reimbursing them. But under this new arrangement, your church can’t go back. MinistryWorks tells us, “Your ministry cannot ‘carve out’ a portion of workers’ wages to fund the benefit. The benefit must be paid in addition to regular wages.”[2] So now you’d have to increase everyone’s salary again.

Compliance

A huge drawback is that creating a QSEHRA program also creates a HUGE bureaucratic burden. You’ll have to:

Give every employee proper written notice (and document it)
Get receipts for expenses and proof of coverage from employees
Report the reimbursement amount on their W2s
Comply with HIPAA privacy and data security requirements
Figure out if it creates any ERISA obligations

Reduced Subsidies

Another drawback I see is if the employee has been getting a tax subsidy that pays for part of his/her health insurance premium through the ACA exchange: their subsidy will be reduced by the amount of the QSEHRA they receive, even down to $0[3]. So basically the cost is transferred from the government (taxpayers, really) to the church. Why would your church sign up to pay what’s already being paid by the government? Just calling it like I see it.

Add to that, nobody is writing about whether employees have to count the QSEHRA reimbursements as qualifying income they’d have to report to their ACA exchange. I’m not sure anyone really knows the answer to that yet. But worst case would be ‘yes’, which would double-ding the employee.

Bottom Line

I’d have to see the math work out for me to be excited about this. For now and as far as I can math it, doesn’t sound like a win-win yet.

Special thanks to Doug Foltz at Stadia Church Planting for putting this on my radar.

[1] clergytaxnet.com/health-reimbursement-arrangement-churches/

[2] ministryworks.com/resources/a-health-care-reimbursement-option-now-available/

[3] zanebenefits.com/blog/will-the-qsehra-work-for-my-church

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Source: Churches Can Reimburse Health Insurance Premiums Again – But is It Worth It?

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