Many churches employ either volunteer or professional missionaries. Both types of missionary work raise tax questions. For professional missionaries, the question is, does missionary work differ from other employment enough to justify accommodation? For volunteer missionary work, there are two main questions. The first is, should family and friends be able to deduct contributions to support missionaries? The story of Mormon missions illustrates the evolution of thinking here. Up until the 1980s, Mormon missionaries—or, more often, the missionaries’ parents—paid their own costs of missionary service. A number of missionary parents attempted to create a self-help accommodation, deducting the amounts they sent to their children as charitable deductions. The Supreme Court decided that payments made directly to a taxpayer’s missionary child were not deductible expenses. The story of taxing missionaries does not end with the Supreme Court’s decision, though. Shortly thereafter, the Mormon Church changed its missionary funding procedures; instead of paying their own expenses, Mormon missionaries today make a standardized donation to the church, which then proceeds to pay for missionaries’ expenses. But this newer version of missionary finances leads to the second question: should Mormon missionaries be taxable on the support they receive from the church?