The new tax reform bill includes a tax on some university endowment gains. Harvard’s endowment is currently valued at over $37 billion but they have the audacity to complain about the new plan.
From the Harvard Gazette:
Tax on university endowments passes
Graduate students across the nation dodged a financial bullet Wednesday, even as dozens of prominent universities took a hit in the form of a new tax on university endowments and other investment income. The tax will weaken financial aid, faculty and research initiatives, and other institutional programs that support students, professors, and medical and scientific studies.
Harvard President Drew Faust, who worked against the graduate and endowment taxes, warned that the new endowment tax represents an unprecedented attack on the tax-exempt status of nonprofits and charities because it taxes, for the first time, income for such an institution’s core mission — in this case, education.
The endowment tax is included in the $1.5 trillion tax package passed by the U.S. House and Senate, which was billed as a massive tax cut for the country, but whose earlier versions included increased taxes on higher education to help pay for cuts to corporate and income taxes. Among the most controversial aspects were provisions that would have taxed as income free tuition provided to graduate students and removed the ability to deduct student loan interest from income taxes.
People aren’t feeling much sympathy…
So you have $40,000,000,000 and if you earn 5% you'll increase by $1,966,000,000 and pay $34,000,000 in taxes.
— Yoenis Cespedes (@AppFlyer) December 22, 2017
Gee whiz, I thought redistribution was a good thing.
What's weird is how the tax code under Democrats redistributed away from the middle class and to the wealthy. https://t.co/t6RxVAurQy
— Melissa Mackenzie 🌐 (@MelissaTweets) December 22, 2017
