What Makes a Student? IRS Getting the Question on Endowment Tax

The IRS has been getting questions about who counts as a student for colleges calculating the hit from a tax on endowment income, an official said.

There’s a lot of interest in how broadly or narrowly the agency defines the term “student,” Amber MacKenzie, senior attorney at the IRS Office of Associate Chief Counsel, said at the American Bar Association tax section meeting in San Francisco.

Lawmakers created a 1.4% tax on net investment income in the 2017 overhaul in an effort to keep wealthy colleges from sitting on massive endowments.

For the purposes of calculating the Section ...