Self assessment for religious minister

Good day, I am on a T2 religious minister visa currently holding the position of a trustee of the charity that sponsored my visa. I am neither an employee (as defined at "https://www.gov.uk/employment-status/employee") nor worker (as defined at https://www.gov.uk/employment-status/worker) of this charity and therefore do not receive any salary, payment, income, reimbursement, gifts etc. There is also no written employment contract or payslip with tax code for instance. In short, I volunteer full time at the charity. The reason for this arrangement is that for the purposes of the Employment Rights Act, it is generally accepted law that ministers of religion did not normally come within the definition of ‘employee’ because they were traditionally deemed to be ‘office holders’ working for God and the unique nature of their appointment to carry out essentially spiritual duties meant that they did not have a contract of employment because there was no intention to create legal relations. (see e.g., https://www.cwj.co.uk/site/library/employmentlib/employment_rights_ministers_of_religion_el.html) Accordingly, my understanding is that I do not have a file the Self Assessment tax return, since my answer to Q9 ("Did you hold a position that affects how you’re taxed?") of the Self Assessment tax return is "no". My interpretation is that while I hold a position of the religious minister, it does not affect how I am taxed since there is no taxable income that I can report to HMRC. Finally, I have yet to receive any notice from HRMC to file a self assessment for the previous tax year. Going forward, I just want to confirm that there is no need to file the Self Assessment tax return. Thanks a lot for your kind attention. Best wishes.

Hi,

As long as you receive no income, then a tax return will not be required.

Thank you.