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Do you support taxing tuition waivers?

Do you support taxing tuition waivers?

  • Yes

    Votes: 1 5.9%

  • No

    Votes: 16 94.1%
  • Total voters
    17
99percenter

99percenter

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Joined
Oct 31, 2011
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Very Conservative
Under the house tax bill grad students and students of college employees that get tuition waivers will pay taxes on their tuition break. I really don't understand how the GOP considers not paying tuition as an income. They would get a double whammy of they take a student loan to pay their taxes because they won't be able to deduct the interest. All while corporations get a huge tax cut, middle class families will get a tax increase. Where is grover norquist when you need him? Do those tax pledges no longer apply?
 
99percenter said:
Under the house tax bill grad students and students of college employees that get tuition waivers will pay taxes on their tuition break. I really don't understand how the GOP considers not paying tuition as an income. They would get a double whammy of they take a student loan to pay their taxes because they won't be able to deduct the interest. All while corporations get a huge tax cut, middle class families will get a tax increase. Where is grover norquist when you need him? Do those tax pledges no longer apply?
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They already are over a certain amount.
 
No, it is ridiculous they should pay taxes on waivers. All it does is punish academic achievement for people where every dollar matters. It is like having sales taxes on the full price of a product instead of the sales price.
 
99percenter said:
Under the house tax bill grad students and students of college employees that get tuition waivers will pay taxes on their tuition break. I really don't understand how the GOP considers not paying tuition as an income. They would get a double whammy of they take a student loan to pay their taxes because they won't be able to deduct the interest. All while corporations get a huge tax cut, middle class families will get a tax increase. Where is grover norquist when you need him? Do those tax pledges no longer apply?
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You got a link for any of that, or should we just vote blind?
 
99percenter said:
A waiver isn't taxed. If you get a stipend you pay a tax on that.
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Under Internal Revenue Service regulation (IRC 127), tuition waivers awarded to graduate assistants are to be considered taxable income once the total tuition waiver amount exceeds $5,250.
 
99percenter said:
Under the house tax bill grad students and students of college employees that get tuition waivers will pay taxes on their tuition break. I really don't understand how the GOP considers not paying tuition as an income. They would get a double whammy of they take a student loan to pay their taxes because they won't be able to deduct the interest. All while corporations get a huge tax cut, middle class families will get a tax increase. Where is grover norquist when you need him? Do those tax pledges no longer apply?
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It appears that it will be a $1,312.50 tax increase. Significant, yes, but not catostrophic.

The sources I've looked at are claiming a "400% tax increase" and a "$7000 a year tax increase" but none of those claims make sense when the tax exempt limit is $5,250 and the tax rate is 25%.

Personally, I don't think tuition exemption should be taxed at all. Taxation sucks, right?

Makes you wonder how many of the students that will be affected are all for taxing the **** out of everyone else.
 
trblmkr said:
I haven't seen anything firm on how this to be implemented. But it seems foolish on the surface to make it even more expensive to get a post grad education.
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Looks to me like it's muchado about nothing.
 
trblmkr said:
If you don't care about post grad education or the future of every type of R and D in this country, it's not.
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If those students are going belly up because of $1,312, they were ****ed anyway.
 
apdst said:
It appears that it will be a $1,312.50 tax increase. Significant, yes, but not catostrophic.

The sources I've looked at are claiming a "400% tax increase" and a "$7000 a year tax increase" but none of those claims make sense when the tax exempt limit is $5,250 and the tax rate is 25%.

Personally, I don't think tuition exemption should be taxed at all. Taxation sucks, right?

Makes you wonder how many of the students that will be affected are all for taxing the **** out of everyone else.
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I've read this part of the bill, and don't recall seeing anything about the numbers you mention. Under the law as it is currently written, as far as I can tell, the tuition waivers will be considered taxable income. For example, PhD students in our program get waivers of around $65,000 per year, depending on how many classes they take. They never see any of that money, of course, the university just basically credits their bursar account with an amount equal to their tuition. Under the house version of the bill, that $65,000 will be considered income for the purposes of taxation, and these students will have to pay taxes on it.

If this measure passes, it will create serious hardships for graduate students in this country. If they're in a good PhD program, they cannot work at the same time (I regularly assign about 500 pages of reading per week to my students, and I expect them to know the material when they come to class). Federal regulations on students loans do not allow taxes to count as living expenses. I fear a great many bright folks will look at the practicalities and realize they cannot afford graduate school. How that's supposed to help us going forward is really not clear to me.

Now, if you can explain more carefully where your numbers come from, I'd appreciate it.
 
99percenter said:
Under the house tax bill grad students and students of college employees that get tuition waivers will pay taxes on their tuition break. I really don't understand how the GOP considers not paying tuition as an income. They would get a double whammy of they take a student loan to pay their taxes because they won't be able to deduct the interest. All while corporations get a huge tax cut, middle class families will get a tax increase. Where is grover norquist when you need him? Do those tax pledges no longer apply?
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I personally don't like the idea but it's not really too different than what the IRS already does, taxing people for getting their debts written off.
 
apdst said:
If those students are going belly up because of $1,312, they were ****ed anyway.
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If billionaires were going belly up because of a tax on their jet fuel, they were ****ed anyway!
 
Deuce said:
If billionaires were going belly up because of a tax on their jet fuel, they were ****ed anyway!
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Who said they were? Post a link to that exact comment.
 
ashurbanipal said:
I've read this part of the bill, and don't recall seeing anything about the numbers you mention. Under the law as it is currently written, as far as I can tell, the tuition waivers will be considered taxable income. For example, PhD students in our program get waivers of around $65,000 per year, depending on how many classes they take. They never see any of that money, of course, the university just basically credits their bursar account with an amount equal to their tuition. Under the house version of the bill, that $65,000 will be considered income for the purposes of taxation, and these students will have to pay taxes on it.

If this measure passes, it will create serious hardships for graduate students in this country. If they're in a good PhD program, they cannot work at the same time (I regularly assign about 500 pages of reading per week to my students, and I expect them to know the material when they come to class). Federal regulations on students loans do not allow taxes to count as living expenses. I fear a great many bright folks will look at the practicalities and realize they cannot afford graduate school. How that's supposed to help us going forward is really not clear to me.

Now, if you can explain more carefully where your numbers come from, I'd appreciate it.
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The students can only exempt $5,250. Anything above that is taxed.

The tuition waiver does not come in the form of a payment to me. How will the withholding be made?

When the value of the tuition waiver exceeds $5,250 in a calendar year, the excess is includable as taxable income as non-cash earnings. This means you will not see a pay increase in your check, but rather the excess waiver amount is added to your regular earnings. When non-cash earnings are added to your assistantship stipend, the University must calculate and withhold the additional tax due.
The withholding will be spread over a few months in the regular semester-long contracts to minimize the impact of the deduction. If the $5,250 tuition waiver amount is exceeded in the spring semester, withholdings will be taken from the March, April and May paychecks. If the $5,250 tuition waiver amount is exceeded in the fall semester, withholdings will be taken from October, November, and December paychecks.

FAQs - Taxation on Graduate Assistant Tuition Waivers - Graduate Studies - Western Illinois University
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Since as a capitalist, I firmly believe in the benefits to both the nation and the business world from advanced public education cannot be qualified or dismissed, and that all advanced education should be underwritten at no cost to students other than living costs, on the basis of earned merit, much as the Chinese have practiced for more than 5,000 years, I voted against the proposal in the poll. I understand the thieving political theories of economics of tax every penny real or imaginary, but there does come a point when even they must recognize they are cutting off their noses to spite their faces.

Certainly, we should not be surprised when they decide it is pro forma to tax families for receiving the benefits of public elementary schooling as a form of income. Keep your children home, they don't need to know how to read, write or do basic math. Better smart phones, large screen HDTVs and AI will make all education unnecessary. Counting, weights and balances, are for the uncool or drug dealers, anyway. We're already using AI and robots to perform surgeries, before we know it, doctors and nurses will be superfluous. I'm looking forward to the first animatronic president (built by Disney).
 
No I do not. If you do not want to go to the public school. PAY FOR IT.
 
It discourages higher education which is the last thing we need to do.
 
Im a STEM PhD student, so my answer to the poll is hell no (surprising right?).

For those that don’t know, graduate students, particularly in STEM fields, are paid a rather measly stipend to cover living expenses in exchange for teaching classes and for conducting research. Our stipends probably come out to less than minimum wage if you consider that a 60-80 hour work week is normal. Its enough to live on though and it is taxed like normal income. Typically, we have to pay the university back some of that stipend in the form of mandatory fees (usually thousands of dollars), but luckily, tuition is waived.

For a lot of students, including the tuition waiver as taxable income would probably more than double or triple their “income” particularly if they go to private universities. Personally, I go to an in-state public university, so my taxable income would only increase by about $10,000. For out of state students though it would be a lot more than that. For many students this would put a graduate education out of reach and this could have catastrophic effects on the research community. The majority of research that is done today at the university level is actually done by graduate students, so every major discovery or breakthrough probably had grad students doing the bench work to get it done.

Should this proposal actually become law, the universities would probably adapt in order to lower the burden on their graduate students but I certainly don’t want to take that chance.
 
apdst said:
The students can only exempt $5,250. Anything above that is taxed.
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IRC 127 refers to education assistance programs of an employer to an employee. Very few universities (apparently Western Illinois University is an exception) classify their tuition waivers as an education assistance program. None of our graduate students are considered employees of the university for the purposes of that code--as is the case for most graduate students.

You seem to be saying that, already, graduate students are paying taxes (or should be) on tuition waivers anyway. This is flatly not the case.

If the house version of the law passes, graduate students will incur a significant increase in tax burden, and one that will prevent many of them from continuing in their programs. I hate to be all doom-and-gloom, but I don't see how a single student in our program currently could continue. Again, they cannot work to make up the money they'll owe, and many of them are adult enough that their families aren't going to help out. Most of the graduate programs I know of have a similar cadre of students. This measure will severely impact retention and matriculation in graduate programs in this country.

How in the world that makes us more competitive, improves our economy, etc. etc. is beyond me.
 
99percenter said:
Under the house tax bill grad students and students of college employees that get tuition waivers will pay taxes on their tuition break. I really don't understand how the GOP considers not paying tuition as an income. They would get a double whammy of they take a student loan to pay their taxes because they won't be able to deduct the interest. All while corporations get a huge tax cut, middle class families will get a tax increase. Where is grover norquist when you need him? Do those tax pledges no longer apply?
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I find you to be very conflicted. Your username is 99percenter and you state your lean as very conservative. Something's not right there.
 
holbritter said:
Under Internal Revenue Service regulation (IRC 127), tuition waivers awarded to graduate assistants are to be considered taxable income once the total tuition waiver amount exceeds $5,250.
Click to expand...

I think that is for tuition reimbursement from employers.
 
Moderate Right said:
I find you to be very conflicted. Your username is 99percenter and you state your lean as very conservative. Something's not right there.
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So you believe only the 1% is conservative and the bottom 99% are all liberals.? I wonder how trump won.
 
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