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Republicans are discussing a boost to the 1.4% endowments tax. And colleges are panicking, especially because they don’t think even a D.C. judge will be able to rule that a congressional spending package’s tax hike is in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act which is pretty much all they’ve had until now.
How high should it be?
Is there any reason that the endowments tax shouldn’t match the corporate tax rate?
Despite the coming media claims that hiking the tax will destroy higher education for a generation of students, the endowments tax has been rated at schools with an endowment of $500,000 per student. There’s only so many colleges that meet that criteria and they tend to start at the very top. These are schools, like Harvard, with massive billions in endowments and very little of that money is being spent on students.
What is it being spent on? Deans. The educational system is filled with as many and in some cases more administrators than full-time professors. Some of the money goes to trendy causes. The amounts that go to providing a decent education are minuscule.
Lefties love taxes but they don’t believe that Harvard should have to pay its fair share. Taxes are for other people. For small businesses. Not for colleges with billions in the bank pushing class warfare.
But maybe that’s about to change.
Maybe put a tax on foreign endowments to universities.
It should be the same sliding scale applied to regular interest income. The current marginal federal tax rate on interest income is approximately 37% on interest income over $626,000. The rest of us have to pay it so why shouldn’t Harvard and other academic institutions?
It’s only fair that ALL laws be applied equally without exceptions. Of course, that’s wishful thinking because we all know that in reality, that’s not how laws or justice works. It never has and it never will.
What about requiring university professors and administrators who receive US government grants to wear ankle monitors? And those who receive them from foreign grants to wear a shock collar too?