Keywords
Higher educational endowments
Abstract
Section 13701 of the 2017 Tax Reform statute created new Internal Revenue Code § 4968 that imposes a 1.4% excise tax on the net investment income of certain billion-dollar private college and university endowments.
This Article will review and critique the existing endowment excise tax legislation. It also will raise the controversial issue of whether all, or merely the largest, endowments should be subject to any tax whatsoever and will recommend that the revenue from the tax be applied to educational programs. Further, this Article will offer an overview of Congressional and academic criticism of the largest endowments, discuss the changes in approach to endowment investing—the growth of educational endowments—and will suggest that endowments subject to the tax should be able to reduce or offset their excise taxes by engaging in certain public policy initiatives.
Recommended Citation
Fishman, James J.
(2018)
"How Big is Too Big: Should Certain Higher Educational Endowments' Net Investment Income be Subject to Tax?,"
Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy: Vol. 28:
Iss.
2, Article 2.
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cjlpp/vol28/iss2/2