USA:Taxing Tuition Waivers

[Alice Hempel]

Dear Taxacom members

with apologies to non-United States subscribers,

It has been pointed out to me by several graduate students that the Tax
Relief Bills (S.949 and H.R.2014) now in conference committee have several
sections that will negatively impact graduate education in the US. A web
site run by the National Assoc. of Graduate and Professional Students
provides a detailed discussion of the sections and their effects.

http://www.nagps.org/NAGPS/index.html

In brief, the tuition/fee waivers provided by universities to employees
and graduate students would now be taxed as INCOME and many of the new
provisions such as the $10,000 education deduction and others specifically
EXCLUDE graduate or professional degrees.

This will doubly hurt graduate students, as not only will they be forced
to pay much higher taxes on their stipends, it will reduce their
eligibility for income based Financial Aid. At private universities with
much higher tuition the impact will be even greater.

Stipends will need to be raised, which in turn, will likely lead to
increases in tuition. Research grants that support graduate students will
also have to spend more on stipends, with less availible for research.
Alternatively, students will have to take out more loans or extra jobs to
support their education and as our students likely do not have the
possibility of large salaries following graduation, this will negatively
impact our ability to attract the best students.

Please contact your members of congress.  Names, phone numbers, addresses
and e-mail addresses can be located by calling:
1-800-962-3524 or 1-800-972-3524
or
http://www.house.gov/
http://www.senate.gov/

Thank you,

Alice

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<> Dr. Alice Hempel                                             <>
<> Dept. of Genetics       email: hempel at dogwood.botany.uga.edu <>
<> Life Sciences Bldg      phone: (706) 542-1408                <>
<> University of Georgia   FAX: (706) 542-3910                  <>
<> Athens, GA 30602-7223                                        <>
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