Court Opinion

ID: 9488342
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:42:18.550621+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:49.598787
License: Public Domain

WIDENER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
The majority adopts the opinion of the Tax Court, finding Weber 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 ease, in concluding that a Pentecostal pastor with Methodist roots, he having attended both Emory University and Emory and Henry College,* was an independent contractor, entitled to deduct his trade and business expenses in full. See Robert A. Shelley, RIA T.C.Memo 94,432, at 94-2300, 1994 WL 461840 (1994), appeal pending, No. 95-2731 (11th Cir.1995). I do not agree that there is justification, and I would therefore reverse the Tax Court’s decision on the ground of inconsistency.
*1115Both Weber and Shelley were paid a salary by their local churches, see, e.g., op. at 1108, 1109; Shelley, T.C.Memo at 2304, as to which ministers are clearly independent contractors, because a minister’s local congregation is the ultimate consumer of his services. Moreover, the Internal Revenue Code treats all ordained ministers as self-employed for purposes of Social Security tax collection. See 26 U.S.C. §§ 3121(b)(8), 1402(e)(4), (e); Olsen v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 709 F.2d 278 (4th Cir.1983); 26 C.F.R. § 1.1402(c)-5(a)(2), (b). After reviewing the facts of the two cases, I cannot find any other material, permissible consideration that distinguishes Weber from Shelley sufficient to justify the differential tax treatments imposed by the Tax Court in these two cases.
The Shelley court referred to the Tax Court’s decision in Weber as “shar[ing] certain similarities with the instant case,” but concluded nonetheless that the International Pentecostal Holiness Church “did not have the same type of relationship with [Shelley] that the United Methodist Church does with its ministers.” Shelley, T.C.Memo at 2307-OS. Having reviewed the facts of both cases, I believe that the differences between Shelley’s relationship to the Pentecostal Church and Weber’s relationship to the United Methodist Church are either immaterial or are based on impermissible doctrinal considerations, or both.
The critical issue in this case is the level of control over the conduct of ministers exercised by the Methodist Church. See op. at 1112. To a large extent, the facts relied upon by the Tax Court to support its finding of control are elements of religious doctrine as set out in the Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church, see op. at 1105-06, 1107-08, which is a doctrinal authority generally establishing the laws, policies, and precepts of the Church. Thus, the Book of Discipline is guided by religious conviction and religious law, not by employment relationships, and its strictures should be considered impermissible or immaterial in determining the employment status of a religious minister. In other words, the fact that Weber was answerable in numerous ways to the Annual Conference or others as set out in the Book of Discipline does not reflect an employment relationship any more than does his belief that he is answerable to God.
Moreover, many of the facts relied upon by the Tax Court in this case are immaterial or minimally probative of his employment status, and are in any event impossible to distinguish from those involved in Shelley’s case sufficiently to justify a different outcome. For example, that Weber was ultimately guaranteed a salary by the Annual Conference, op. at 1108, is hardly relevant in the light of the fact that his salary was actually paid by his local congregation. The fact that Weber could be disciplined, relocated, or terminated by the Annual Conference, see op. at 1107, is substantially a question of religious doctrine rather than employment status, see supra; and, in any event, it is materially indistinguishable from the constraints imposed upon Shelley, who could be decertified and placed on probation by the Sonshine Conference for failure to comply with the International Pentecostal Holiness Church Manual, a work similar in authority and purpose to the Book of Discipline. See Shelley, T.C.Memo at 2303. Finally, various benefits provided to Weber by the United Methodist Church, see op. at 1108-09, are at best minimally relevant to Weber’s employment status with the United Methodist Church in the light of the ultimate fact that he was paid and provided benefits by his local congregation. Once again, moreover, the benefits provided to Weber are hardly distinguishable from those available to Shelley, who the Tax Court found to be an independent contractor. See Shelley, T.C.Memo at 2304.
Because the tax code treats all ordained religious ministers as self-employed for Social Security tax collection purposes, because Weber was paid by his local congregation, and because no material facts sufficiently distinguish Weber’s ease from Shelley’s, I would hold the Tax Court to its own most recent decision in Shelley and reverse the finding that Weber is an employee for income tax purposes.

 John Emory was a Methodist bishop from Maryland who died in 1835. The Henry is Patrick Henry, the brother of Madame Russell, a notable Methodist lay worker of that era.