TAs' tax exemption status to end

Congress's inability to pass health care reform legislation this year will affect the economic well-being of University employees courses in University graduate schools. A tax exclusion currently applicable to the first $5,250 of employees' tuition benefits will end on December 31, according to Jacob Miller, a tax analyst in the Comptroller's Office. "Effective January 1, for educational assistance at the graduate level, employees will now become taxable from dollar one," he said. The tuition costs for employees taking classes at the undergraduate and graduate levels are paid out of the University's employee benefits pool, according to Associate Dean for Graduate Studies in the School of Arts and Sciences Donald Fitts. Fitts said payments for dependents of employees are also paid out of the same fund. The continuation of the exemption was part of health care legislation never voted on by the House of Representatives or the Senate. "They basically tried to tack it onto health care legislation," Miller said. Graduate and Professional Student Assembly Chairperson David Mestre said he is "appalled" by the decision to tax these benefits. "It penalizes a student in a number of ways," said Mestre, a fifth-year Astronomy graduate student. "It penalizes you if you want to gain marketable skills, or if you want to expand your intellectual horizons." Fitts echoed Mestre's sentiments. "I just feel it's a benefit Congress should not tax," he said. "It just discourages people from trying to improve their education." Mestre said he would like to see the Republicans, who won a majority in both houses of Congress in last Tuesday's elections, overturn this tax. "I would hope that in the Republican wave to cut taxes, they would seriously consider this particular tax, because it is obstructionist," he said. Miller said an extension is not likely to occur in the near future. "As it stands right now, there is no hope for any passage of any legislation to extend the exclusion after Dec. 31, 1994," he added.