Editorial standards

The public pages on this site exist to explain the ministerial housing allowance in plain English for pastors, church treasurers, and the boards that designate the allowance each year. They are educational. They are written so that a pastor reading on a phone between services can understand the rule, and so that a treasurer can see where it comes from.

MHA Tracker is a recordkeeping app for the housing allowance, with an educational guide beside it. The app helps a minister keep expenses and receipts in one place and print what a board or a tax preparer asks for. The guide explains the rules those records serve.

Neither one is tax, legal, accounting, or financial advice. Reading a page here does not create an advisory or client relationship with anyone. Education describes how a rule works in general; advice applies the rule to your facts, and only someone who knows your facts can give it. Please take what you read here to a qualified tax professional who works with ministers before you act on it.

Every answer is built from primary sources first, and every page lists the sources it drew on. When sources disagree, the one higher on this list wins:

1. The Internal Revenue Code (section 107 and section 1402).
2. Treasury Regulations under those sections.
3. IRS publications and guidance: Publication 517, Tax Topic 417, and the IRS ministers' compensation and housing allowance FAQ.
4. Court decisions on the housing allowance.
5. Recognized professional sources, such as ECFA and Church Law & Tax.
6. Commentary from practitioners who serve ministers.

Commentary is used to explain and illustrate, never as the sole basis for a rule. Where the law is unsettled, the page says so rather than picking a side.

Paul McWilliams, CKA®, financial advisor to pastors, churches, and ministry organizations, reviews the wording of the guide's answers, the expense checklist, and the calculator copy. A page carries his name only when he has reviewed its wording. A page he has not yet reviewed shows its dates and nothing else; there is no placeholder reviewer and no anonymous “editorial team.”

There is a place on every page for an independent clergy tax reviewer, a CPA or enrolled agent who works with ministers. It will show that person's name on each page they have reviewed once one is engaged, and not before.

Drafts are prepared from the sources above with the help of AI research and writing tools, then checked against those sources and reviewed before a reviewer's name is attached. No answer is published on the strength of a draft alone, and no figure appears without a source a reader can open.

Every page shows two dates: when it was first published, and when it was last updated. The guide's answers were last updated on August 30, 2026 and are written for tax year 2026. Dates move only when someone has actually looked at the page; they are never bumped to look fresh.

The tax-year label is forward-looking. It is based on the latest IRS Publication 517 available at review time, and figures that change from year to year, such as form line numbers and rates, are rechecked each filing season.

If you find something wrong, please email support@mhatracker.com with the page's address and what you believe is incorrect. We check it against the sources, fix what needs fixing, and the corrected page shows a new “last updated” date. Thank you: a reader who writes in does the next reader a favor.

This site sells MHA Tracker subscriptions. That is how it is paid for. The educational pages carry invitations to start a free account, and those invitations are the only promotion on them. There are no affiliate links, no sponsored content, and no paid placement anywhere on the site.

Where the founder's own work could bear on an answer, the page says so. The answer about church 403(b) contributions carries a disclosure because he advises a church 403(b) plan; it is written as general education, not as a recommendation.