3 ms·

Another thing I find interesting about "PhD-employees" in the US is that we are considered students when it helps the government and employees when it helps the

Another thing I find interesting about "PhD-employees" in the US is that we are considered students when it helps the government and employees when it helps the university. My main complaint has to do with the nature of taxing research/teaching/fellowship income as "income", and then turning around and not allowing those students to invest the money in IRA accounts (according to the tax code, any money eligible for IRA contributions must be on a single box on a W-2 form, which many students do not get) This is deeply troubling to students like myself who would like to invest and save a significant part of our salary for the future, as we would if we were truly employees in industry.

munin 12y ago
I know of schools that don't give W2s, pretty sure that is just illegal and also pretty sure those schools get dinged by the IRS regularly for this. some student friends of mine get paid in very sketchy ways, like in personal checks from the department administrator, and don't even know if the university has done withholding. these are ivy league schools too! every few years there is a big IRS thing but nothing changes. universities are shady as hell.
- tanderson92 12y ago
  Fellowship income (for example from the STEM fellowships) is not reported as earned income for sure. It's less clear for other positions. Consider this from IRS publication 970: “Scholarship and fellowship payments are compensation for IRA purposes only if shown in box 1 of Form W-2.”
BruceIV 12y ago
That sucks; my experience in Canada is that the student/employee duality is usually spun to help us - hence, we're university employees in terms of labour protections, but as far as student loan repayment and income tax goes, we're 12-month a year full time students, and most of our income is non-taxable scholarships.

3 ms·

Another thing I find interesting about "PhD-employees" in the US is that we are considered students when it helps the government and employees when it helps the

by tanderson92 12y ago

munin 12y ago
I know of schools that don't give W2s, pretty sure that is just illegal and also pretty sure those schools get dinged by the IRS regularly for this. some student friends of mine get paid in very sketchy ways, like in personal checks from the department administrator, and don't even know if the university has done withholding. these are ivy league schools too! every few years there is a big IRS thing but nothing changes. universities are shady as hell.
- tanderson92 12y ago
  Fellowship income (for example from the STEM fellowships) is not reported as earned income for sure. It's less clear for other positions. Consider this from IRS publication 970: “Scholarship and fellowship payments are compensation for IRA purposes only if shown in box 1 of Form W-2.”
BruceIV 12y ago
That sucks; my experience in Canada is that the student/employee duality is usually spun to help us - hence, we're university employees in terms of labour protections, but as far as student loan repayment and income tax goes, we're 12-month a year full time students, and most of our income is non-taxable scholarships.