How much more will you pay under the proposed tax plan?

Kestrel

Kestrel

Well-known member
I'm working on a STEM PhD right now. If Congress's tax plan goes through, it will cripple me. People will be taxed on earned income as a teaching assistant or research assistant, plus the full amount of the tuition waiver, which is typically given to PhD students nationwide. You're talking 50-75k of tax liability on 20-30k of income.

This utterly destroy pursuit of advanced degrees in STEM fields, except for the extremely wealthy, which totally fucks the USA's ability to remain competitive in the world economy.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/7/16612288/gop-tax-bill-graduate-students

https://www.wired.com/story/grad-students-are-freaking-out-about-the-gops-tax-plan-they-should-be/

The annual stipend for a PhD student in Carnegie Mellon's school of computer science is about $32,400. The university covers the student's $43,000 tuition, in exchange for the research she conducts and the courses she teaches. Under current law, the government taxes only a student’s stipend; the waived tuition is not taken into account. But under the GOP bill, her annual taxable income would rise from $32,400 to $76,234. Even factoring in new deductions also included in the proposal, the CMU document estimates her taxes would amount to $10,209 per year—nearly four times the amount under current law. That would slash her net annual stipend by 25 percent, from $29,566 to $22,191.
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Totally fucked up.
 
zammer

zammer

Tripler
Kestrel said:
I'm working on a STEM PhD right now. If Congress's tax plan goes through, it will cripple me. People will be taxed on earned income as a teaching assistant or research assistant, plus the full amount of the tuition waiver, which is typically given to PhD students nationwide. You're talking 50-75k of tax liability on 20-30k of income.

This utterly destroy pursuit of advanced degrees in STEM fields, except for the extremely wealthy, which totally fucks the USA's ability to remain competitive in the world economy.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/7/16612288/gop-tax-bill-graduate-students

https://www.wired.com/story/grad-students-are-freaking-out-about-the-gops-tax-plan-they-should-be/

Totally fucked up.
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I'm in the same boat, and I fear it will fall on deaf ears. Too easy to sell that PhD's are part of the liberal indoctrination machine and screw them for mooching.

This will gut the ability of the USA to produce top tier researchers, engineers and scientists to generate new technology. Instead, the only ones that will be able to afford it will be trust fund kids.

I understand that the Republican philosophy is to not use taxes as an incentive system, at least they're being true to that. But for what? Increase effective tax rate on broke ass grad students by 1000% to raise what must be a rounding error in the pentagon's budget?

Us even paying tuition in the first place is ridiculous as we're essentially employees after year 2 of the degree. So now even more burden trickles down to us.

Meanwhile, north of the border, not only is the tuition waiver not taxed, but neither is any fellowship, scholarship or RA/stipend money you make to support your research.
 
2nsane

2nsane

Retired Coastie
right now we will save close to $3000 a year on taxes from the Trump plan. So I am all for the Trump Tax plan:thumbup
 
afm199

afm199

Well-known member
My situation is complicated enough that it will either cost me a bit more or save me a bit. Kind of revenue neutral for me.
 
bpw

bpw

Well-known member
Pretty sure I will be paying more, I would actually be ok with that if it meant a big tax cut for the poor and increased services since I am doing alright and don't mind paying back to society for the opportunities I was given. Unfortunately that is not what is happening and I very unhappy about the rich getting massive cuts on the backs of the middle class and poor.

It takes a pretty impressive lack of empathy and feelings of entitlement to support the current plan. Especially things like the changes in the estate tax that allow transfer of wealth to younger generations. Can't even make the argument that children worked hard to earn their parents income. (not that working "hard" has much relation to wealth)

It seems the republicans have stopped even pretending to support the working class or balanced budgets, and are in full on cash grab mode.
 
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M

mlm

Contrarian
Some of the numbers seem pretty high. Are people entering numbers for the prior year and remembering to count any refunds? Aside from a few people getting hit hard, I’d expect the cuts to be under 2K in even the best cases...unless you are in the top .05%
 
afm199

afm199

Well-known member
Looks like I may save $1,500. We'll see.

The real question is where is the shortfall coming from? Neither party seems to have an answer to that.
 
sasquatch

sasquatch

Well-known member
I am nearly 0.
I have done a lot of tax avoidance this year by maxing out both the wife's and my 401K to the over 50 number.
The $24,000 personal deduction is just about what my itemized deduction would be if I could take all of my paid taxes. Thanks Oregon 9% tax rate.
Now if it wasn't for the stock I sold, I would be sitting pretty. But even at long term, I have to pay :(.
 
budman

budman

General Menace
Staff member
Quick take according to the calculator is a savings of about 10k. I find it hard to believe.
 
bpw

bpw

Well-known member
Pretty sure the calculator isn't including things like SS and unemployment taxes. If you are self employed like me that is a big chunk of my federal taxes.
 
bikeama

bikeama

Super Moderator
Staff member
Quick and dirty check looks like +/- $500 for me, so not much change. However we have no idea what will be the final plan.

Just a side note. The Phd tax is pure BS. My daughter and her husband both have Phd's from Johns Hopkins, hell they were almost indentured servants while there.
 
M

mlm

Contrarian
bpw said:
Pretty sure the calculator isn't including things like SS and unemployment taxes. If you are self employed like me that is a big chunk of my federal taxes.
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It's far from perfect and is only including Federal Income Tax. To get a fair comparison I'd suggest entering in the previous year's gross income less any tax deferred retirement contributions. Compare this to the total federal tax you paid last year, either off your 1040 or by looking at your neck stub contributions and subtract out your federal tax refund

edit: And I had my numbers wrong (or they updated the calculator). Plugging in as I just said ends up a $3500 increase. Glad to know I'm redistributing to some of the people in this thread. That or I need to start pursuing some shadier tax deductions since they're also going to axe the AMT.
 
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