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The House's Tax Bill Levies a Tax On Graduate Student Tuition Waivers (nytimes.com)
Camel Pilot writes: The new GOP tax plan -- which just passed the House -- will tax tuition waivers as income. Graduate students working as research assistants on meager stipends would have to declare tuition waivers as income on the order of $80,000 income. This will force many graduate students of modest means to quit their career paths and walk away from their research. These are the next generation of scientists, engineers, inventors, educators, medical miracle workers and market makers. As Prof Claus Wilke points out: "This would be a disaster for U.S. STEM Ph.D. education." Slashdot reader Camel Pilot references a report via The New York Times, where Erin Rousseau explains how the House of Representatives' recently passed tax bill affects graduate research in the United States. Rousseau is a graduate student at M.I.T. who studies the neurological basis of mental health disorders. "My peers and I work between 40 and 80 hours a week as classroom teachers and laboratory researchers, and in return, our universities provide us with a tuition waiver for school. For M.I.T. students, this waiver keeps us from having to pay a tuition bill of about $50,000 every year -- a staggering amount, but one that is similar to the fees at many other colleges and universities," he writes. "No money from the tuition waivers actually ends up in our pockets, so under Section 117(d)(5), it isn't counted as taxable income." Rousseau continues by saying his tuition waivers will be taxed under the House's tax bill. "This means that M.I.T. graduate students would be responsible for paying taxes on an $80,000 annual salary, when we actually earn $33,000 a year. That's an increase of our tax burden by at least $10,000 annually."
It's not a complete loss. You can still research new ways to flip hamburgers at McDonalds. They called this "trickle down economics" in the 80s. You've just been trickled on.
Good, the universities' system of indentured servitude needs to be called out. Either the tuition is part of their pay, in which case it needs to be handed over to the student, or it's not, in which case, they're working for less than minimum wage and need to be paid appropriately. This shit was unethical when coal companies did it in the Appalachians, it's just as wrong now when the ivory tower does it.
This "tax cut" 10 years out fucks the 99% to help out the 1%. Everything I hear about it is wrong. It's truly amazing how the R's can't avoid putting the booger hook on the bang switch, taking off some tootsies in the process.
If they taxed the scholarships of football player, that would get a lot of people's attention.
Just FYI, any time you are given something of value, it is income. Someone lets you live in their house for free? Income. Someone writes off a debt instead of collecting it? Income. Someone waives a fee they normally charge? Income. A friend gives you an interest-free loan, or even just at below-market interest rates? The IRS has tables to calculate how much income you are required to report. I'm kinda astonished that these tuition waivers weren't always taxed, since everything else is.
There is an exemption for gifts, up to $13,000 per person per person per year. (not a typo) They must be bona fide gifts with no strings or conditions.
See that "Preview" button?
In the early 1990s this tax on tuition waivers as income was proposed, I believe it never passed back then.
I had just finished my masters' but I remember being incensed at the economics of it. With tuition waivers, I was living on $1200/month as a teaching assistant and getting my degree. Without tuition waivers, I would have been paying tax on $3000/month total "income" which would have taken away about half of my actual cash income - turning my situation from independent and sustainable to one of dependence on my parents to continue to foot the bills for my education. Other majors' TA salaries were much lower, and it would have turned them from earning small pocket money while getting a degree into paying out of pocket to cover the taxes.
Face value of tuition is a farce, so many students are given tuition waivers, scholarships, reduced rates, etc. Taxing it at face value would be like paying sales tax on the sticker price of a car, regardless of what you negotiated it down to; but worse, cars are only marked up 20%, I'd put average tuition markup closer to 60% at many of the "higher priced" institutions.
Taxing people who don't have money isn't the same as taxing those who have loads of it and don't benefit society to the same extent.
Here tuition is tax deductible, scholarships and grants are tax exempt and most if not all of your TA pay counts as a scholarship.
I have a bridge to sell you, and some fine land in Florida.
Seriously, they really have conned you, haven't they?
These populists are blowhards who are supported by ultra-wealthy interests, who pander to the worst instincts of low information voters. People who want to impose their own will on others in many aspects of life. People who think that they alone have the framework for a moral life, rejecting any competing ideas.
Just look at the tax plan: promoted by the biggest populist of them all: Donald Trump. It's a huge bung to ultra-wealthy, a minor tax cut for a few middle-class people, and a tax increase for many other middle class people.
Well, there are two problems with that.
1. Even if some of the accusations are fraudulent (and none have been proven to be so), others remain. Moore didn't even deny all the allegations.
2. McConnell is also the enemy. You support the Republicans despite their policies being aimed to impoverish ordinary people and put your faith in people who are even more right-wing, even more determined to impoverish ordinary people.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
People are trying to argue that all income should be taxed.
Estate Tax is being repealed in this very same GOP plan. How can anyone argue that inheritance isn't income? And the assets in an inheritance (property, stocks, bonds) have their basis (original cost) magically stepped up to present value and thereby dodging the normal Capital Gains tax.
It appears the Republicans favor old money, the idle rich and trust fund babies than they do scientists, doctors, educators, engineers - you know the people that actually make American Great.
The "populists" are the ones who are making sure those middle and working class people can still get a tax write-off for their private planes, and will now be able to bring back "trophies" when they go on their African safaris.
The "populists" are the ones laundering Russian drug money through their real estate deals. The "populists" are the ones trying to get $15,000,000.00 to kidnap and deliver a foreign national to a corrupt Turkish dictator. The "populists" are the ones who have been shown in the Paradise Papers to be involved in deals with Russian oligarchs worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Clearly, they're concerned about the well-being of the common American.
Because Moore is a pedophile. He diddled little girls to show what a staunch "populist" his is.
Actually, McConnell immediately started a Senate Ethics Committee investigation into Franken. The same kind that got Bob Packwood tossed out of Congress not long ago.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The 'populists' are useful idiots. All that is required to win their support is to wave the flag a lot, talk about how great America is and blame every problem upon immigrants and foreigners.
Moore did not win because he was standing up for the people: He won because he isn't ashamed to tell the people that Christians are the best, nonbelievers are all America-hating commie filth, and that homosexuals are plotting to rape their children. It's Alabama, that sort of thing goes down well there.
It's not robbing rich people. Maintaining a civilization costs money, someone has to pay for it. Rich people have benefited the most from it, so why shouldn't they pay more?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.