From Carl Hockenberry, Diocesan Treasurer & Director of Adminstration
The Church Pension Group has published two valuable tax guides as follows:
1. 2013 Federal Reporting Requirements for Episcopal Churches. This is an excellent guide to tax issues facing parish financial administrators, wardens, vestries, and treasurers, particularly with respect to the special tax issues associated with clergy. Among many things, this guide contains sample vestry housing designations for clergy in various situations. This guide was made available on February 15, 2013.
2. 2013 Clergy Tax Guide (for 2012 Taxes). This is an excellent reference for clergy when preparing their own income tax returns. For those clergy who use a paid tax preparer, I strongly suggest you provide a copy of this guide to your tax preparer.
Both of these guides are available at www.cpg.org/forms-and-publications/?label=publications/tax-publications
Another very useful guide published by the Episcopal Church's Office of the Treasurer is The Episcopal Church Manual Of Business Methods in Church Affairs. This manual should be read by anyone in a church who has financial responsibility, such as rectors, vestries, wardens, treasurers, financial and parish administrators, finance committees, and audit committees.
This manual has chapters covering: financial management, internal controls, bookkeeping, taxes and the Episcopal Church, clergy discretionary funds, audit guidelines for congregations, insurance, parochial reports, and records management. This manual is updated online from time to time. This guide is available at www.episcopalchurch.org/sites/default/files/downloads
/full_manual_spring_2012.pdf