5 ms·

This isn't a subsidy. It's a correction for a required administrative process.

by Fomite 9y ago

darawk 9y ago
> In broad terms, the bill would eliminate or consolidate a number of tax deductions meant to offset the costs of higher education for individuals and companies, including the Lifetime Learning Credit, which provides a tax deduction of up to $2,000 for tuition, a credit for student-loan interest, and a $5,250 corporate deduction for education-assistance plans. Sounds like a subsidy to me.
- Fomite 9y ago
  The waivers aren't a subsidy.
  - darawk 9y ago
    The bill proposes taxing them. The waivers are a gift that has value. Not taxing them is the same as subsidizing them.
    - Fomite 9y ago
      A mandatory gift that is of no material benefit to the student that is generated as an administrative process is not the kind of gift that should be taxed. This would be like taxing you because I asked you to hold onto a $20 bill for me while I reshuffled my wallet.
      - darawk 9y ago
        It's barter. The students are trading their time for an education. That is a value transfer. There is nothing mandatory about it. Each party is consensually entering into an agreement to transfer services that have non-trivial value. If you could simply escape taxation by bartering, you'd see a lot more bartering. But you don't, because barter is still legally taxable.
        throwawayjava 9y ago
        No. As noted elsewhere, no education is provided through 90% of these courses. They meet zero times per week and have no real instructor. They are a book keeping exercise so that PhD students are still technically students while working in the lab, not an actual tangible educational course. This is a just a significant decrease in research funding that is, by default at least, implemented as a substantial tax increase on grad students (those bastards...?), who now pay tax on 40k/year of tuition for literally imaginary courses. I agree the situation is awkward and stupid, but the material effect is what matters. Without a corresponding increase in science and education funding this is basically an enormous cut to science funding and undergraduate education funding. And it's one that is by default shouldered exclusively by people making 20k / year.
        Fomite 9y ago
        This. What it actually is is a tax cut funded by a stealthy cut to the NIH/NSF/DoE/CDC etc. research budgets. It's eating the seed corn. Quietly, but it's there.
        darawk 9y ago
        No, what was stealthy was funding it this way in the first place. If you want to fund something, fund it. Don't fund it through tax policy. Tax policy should be about revenue collection, not funding research.
        spaceseaman 9y ago
        But it's not funding anything! There is no actual income being made. This is imposing a tax on something that no one actually gets! It's an accounting procedure used by Universities so they can meet the requirements of you being a student by law. I am a PhD student. My tuition of $30,000/year is waived by the University of California since I take no classes and am purely doing research. I need to be a student for various tax purposes for both the University and myself. If the money from my waiver was taxed, I would somehow have to come up with an extra $10,000 out of nowhere! Where do I find that money? My PhD is my job. The government is not funding anything, and I feel you're using that terminology purely to muddy the issue. To be clear, I don't much care for your argument here. Regardless of your ideological concerns about the ideal way to tax stuff, this policy clearly hurts people who are already in a precarious financial position. It will have remarkably negative effects for students like me. I will simply have to drop out, and all of the domestic PhD students I know in STEM will as well. We can't afford to take out loans for taxes... This policy has a clear goal. It's impact is what matters. Simply demanding that the tax code be simplified is in this case ludicrous. You're really missing the forest for the trees here - this effectively kills all STEM PhDs in the United States. It's impact would be devastating.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

This isn't a subsidy. It's a correction for a required administrative process.

by Fomite 9y ago

This isn't a subsidy. It's a correction for a required administrative process.

> In broad terms, the bill would eliminate or consolidate a number of tax deductions meant to offset the costs of higher education for individuals and companies, including the Lifetime Learning Credit, which provides a tax deduction of up to $2,000 for tuition, a credit for student-loan interest, and a $5,250 corporate deduction for education-assistance plans. Sounds like a subsidy to me.

Fomite 9y ago
The waivers aren't a subsidy.
- darawk 9y ago
  The bill proposes taxing them. The waivers are a gift that has value. Not taxing them is the same as subsidizing them.
  - Fomite 9y ago
    A mandatory gift that is of no material benefit to the student that is generated as an administrative process is not the kind of gift that should be taxed. This would be like taxing you because I asked you to hold onto a $20 bill for me while I reshuffled my wallet.
    - darawk 9y ago
      It's barter. The students are trading their time for an education. That is a value transfer. There is nothing mandatory about it. Each party is consensually entering into an agreement to transfer services that have non-trivial value. If you could simply escape taxation by bartering, you'd see a lot more bartering. But you don't, because barter is still legally taxable.
      - throwawayjava 9y ago
        No. As noted elsewhere, no education is provided through 90% of these courses. They meet zero times per week and have no real instructor. They are a book keeping exercise so that PhD students are still technically students while working in the lab, not an actual tangible educational course. This is a just a significant decrease in research funding that is, by default at least, implemented as a substantial tax increase on grad students (those bastards...?), who now pay tax on 40k/year of tuition for literally imaginary courses. I agree the situation is awkward and stupid, but the material effect is what matters. Without a corresponding increase in science and education funding this is basically an enormous cut to science funding and undergraduate education funding. And it's one that is by default shouldered exclusively by people making 20k / year.
        Fomite 9y ago
        This. What it actually is is a tax cut funded by a stealthy cut to the NIH/NSF/DoE/CDC etc. research budgets. It's eating the seed corn. Quietly, but it's there.
        darawk 9y ago
        No, what was stealthy was funding it this way in the first place. If you want to fund something, fund it. Don't fund it through tax policy. Tax policy should be about revenue collection, not funding research.
        spaceseaman 9y ago
        But it's not funding anything! There is no actual income being made. This is imposing a tax on something that no one actually gets! It's an accounting procedure used by Universities so they can meet the requirements of you being a student by law. I am a PhD student. My tuition of $30,000/year is waived by the University of California since I take no classes and am purely doing research. I need to be a student for various tax purposes for both the University and myself. If the money from my waiver was taxed, I would somehow have to come up with an extra $10,000 out of nowhere! Where do I find that money? My PhD is my job. The government is not funding anything, and I feel you're using that terminology purely to muddy the issue. To be clear, I don't much care for your argument here. Regardless of your ideological concerns about the ideal way to tax stuff, this policy clearly hurts people who are already in a precarious financial position. It will have remarkably negative effects for students like me. I will simply have to drop out, and all of the domestic PhD students I know in STEM will as well. We can't afford to take out loans for taxes... This policy has a clear goal. It's impact is what matters. Simply demanding that the tax code be simplified is in this case ludicrous. You're really missing the forest for the trees here - this effectively kills all STEM PhDs in the United States. It's impact would be devastating.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]