Taxing The Rich on Campus

It turns out that the House Republican tax plan actually does tax the rich, at least in academia. “One is the proposal for a 20 percent excise tax on employee compensation over $1 million at non-profit colleges, applying to the five highest paid employees, including all forms of compensation,” George Leef of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal writes. “At many schools, the top sports coaches make well into seven figures (Duke’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski pulls in more than $7 million per year), and 39 university presidents now top $1 million and eight top $2 million, according to U.S News and World Report.”

And, Leef points out, the plan goes after endowments as well: “Finally (and saving the worst for last) is the proposal for a 1.4 percent excise tax on the investment income of private college endowments. This new tax would apply to private institutions with endowment values of $100,000 per student or more. Presently, that (again arbitrary and symbolic) figure would snare about 150 schools including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT, and some of their funds would be gobbled up by the government.”

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