Friday, November 17, 2017

Tell Congress Not to Tax Tuition Waivers for Graduate Students

Published November 17, 2017

On November 16th, the US Congress House of Representatives passed a tax bill with a clause that would make waived tuition for graduate students subject to income tax. This would significantly increase the tax liability of hundreds of thousands of graduate students. You can read more about the legislation on the National Humanities Alliance blog. You can also read this opinion piece in the New York Times and the editorial in the Washington Post.

The Senate version of the tax bill does not include this clause and, as it currently stands, leaves the exemption intact.  We must take action now to make sure that the Senate does not add this clause into its tax bill.  Should the Senate pass a tax bill (even with the exemption intact), the House and the Senate bills will then move to a conference committee, at which point the House version could be adopted.

ASEEES urges all concerned members in the US to contact their members of Congress to oppose this provision and urge them to maintain the tax exemption. If your university has an office of federal/government relations, make sure that office is aware how crucial this issue is to the future of graduate studies and of the scholarly profession.

You can write to your members of Congress by using this NHA online action form. Call their offices and urge them to oppose the repeal of Section 117(d) tuition reduction assistance in the House’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.  You can find their phone numbers here.