Self-employed persons must pay the entire FICA combined tax rate of 15.3% without any offsetting credit. This places an unfair burden on self-employed person s such as pastors, who ordinarily have no employer to share half of the tax. In 1990 Congress amended the tax law to provide self-employed persons with a new benefit. Self-employed persons can now deduct half of their self-employment tax as an adjustment to their gross income in computing federal income taxes, and as a reduction in computing net self-employment earnings tax subject to the self-employment tax (on Schedule SE).