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From: jreuter@cincy.UUCP (Jim Reuter)
Newsgroups: net.college,net.taxes
Subject: Re: tax status for TA's and RA's
Message-ID: <1170@cincy.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-Feb-84 23:29:03 EST
Article-I.D.: cincy.1170
Posted: Tue Feb  7 23:29:03 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 10-Feb-84 01:40:36 EST
References: <4965@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Cincinnati ECE
Lines: 30

Here at U. of Cincinnati, the tax exempt status of grad. students is
entirely up to each department.  My department (EE) has chosen to
give all full time grad students on assistanceships tax exempt
status, whether they are doing funded research, teaching, lab
assistance, or whatever.  This is partly because assignments change
frequently and are chosen somewhat arbitrarily, so this prevents
some people from getting screwed because they got the wrong
assignment.  This is probably also partly because survival on
$500-$600 a month BEFORE taxes is rough enough.  The German
department, which my sister was in, chose to give tax exempt
status to nobody, and they paid even less!

In EE, each student gets a letter which very generally states that
the student is getting paid for REQUIRED activities which PRIMARILY
BENEFIT THE STUDENT, etc.

A bit fuzzier picture is painted on undergrad co-op income.  A few
bold students have tried to claim this as tax exempt for the same
reasons, some with temporary success (my roommate is being audited
for his 1981 return).

As far as filling out the tax form, I was instructed to simply
not put the untaxable income on the form at all, rather than
trying to find a place to subtract it.  The IRS can figure out the
discrepency between the W-2 and the claimed income with the help
of the enclosed letter.  The local IRS office has confirmed
this, and even done this successfully.

	Jim Reuter
	(decvax!cincy!jreuter)