Legal Updates
You can now wait until age 73 to take a Required Minimum Distribution
The Secure Act increased the required minimum distribution (RMD) age from 70-1/2 to 72 and now to 73, marking the first change to the RMD age since first becoming law in 1986. The age increase will only apply to anyone born on or after July 1, 1949.
Major Court Victory for the Ministers’ Housing Allowance
Thousands of pastors and churches across America scored a major victory in the latest court challenge to the ministers’ housing allowance.
In its highly anticipated opinion on March 15, 2019, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously reversed a lower federal district court, which had ruled in late 2017 against the longstanding housing allowance for ministers. Instead, the appeals court likened the ministers’ housing allowance to other similar benefits in the tax code for work-related housing, finding the provision permissible under the First Amendment and well-established legal precedent.
ECFA has actively defended the housing allowance, including supporting an amicus brief that was cited by the appeals court judges in their favorable decision in this case. President Dan Busby commented on the court victory, “This decision is a win not just for the ministers’ housing allowance but for the ‘more than 2,600 federal and state tax laws that provide religious exemptions’ cited by the Seventh Circuit, some of which date back to the early 1800s.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), the group which brought this challenge to the housing allowance, did not indicate their intention to appeal the decision in an early press release reacting to the case.