[Gsc-hca-family] The negative impact of 'Reasonable Compensation' policies at MIT on students with families

[Gerald Dalley]

This message is intended for graduate students with families who receive
outside funding (fellowship or other) in addition to TA or RA money.
The 'reasonable compenstation for RAs and TAs' policy at MIT requires that
any RA or TA money that covers a tuition shortfall, be payed to the student
at an institute mandated ratio of 36.5% stipend 63.5% tuition. The student
is then responsible for paying back tuition from the stipend. If a student
has a fellowship or outside funding source that pays more stipend vs.
tuition than MIT's established ratio, than the student receives tuition
payments in the form of stipend and he or she must report more income than
is actually taken home. To offset the negative impact this might have on a
student's tax liability, MIT subsidizes the excess stipend payment to
account for 15% federal and 5.3% MA taxes.

While MIT makes a good faith effort to rectify the negative impact of this
accounting policy on a student's tax liability, they have not addressed the
negative impact this policy may have on students supporting a family. In
particular, this falsely inflated inflated salary may reduce the eligibility
of a student and their family for certain government subsidized programs
such as:

subsidized or fully compensated health insurance for spouse and children
low-income housing
heating assistance
food assistance
etc.

The yearly fiscal impact of the policy on the student may be several
thousands of dollars depending on family size, income, health etc., orders
of magnitude larger than the effect of tax liability.

Todd Harris, chair of the HCA Task Force on Taxation, is compiling names of
those affected in the above scenario and documenting the financial impact of
the situation to present to the assistant provost. If you have been affected
by MIT's accounting practices in any of the ways described above, please
email Todd (tjharris at mit.edu). Our plan is to document and inform the
provost of ways in which MIT's 'reasonable compensation' policies are
adversely affecting students with families, inform them of the students wish
to have such policies amended or removed, and seek financial compensation
for families who are affected. Thank you for your help in bringing this
situation to light.

Sincerely,
Todd Harris

*
*
*Todd J. Harris*
Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 77 Massachusetts Ave. E19-582
| Cambridge,
MA 02139
Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology
Laboratory for Multiscale Regenerative Technologies
web: lmrt.mit.edu
telephone: 617.959.1303mail to: tjharris at mit.edu