Obama's Tax Credit Plan For College

Student Lounge College Life
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<p>Has anyone heard any new information about who's eligible for it and/or when it's going to be in effect? </p>

<p>Obama's</a> College Tax Credit: The American Opportunity Tax Credit</p>

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<p>Political debate to start in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…</p>

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<p>Lawlz at the people getting into it in the comments section of that site.</p>

<p>Uh oh, Carlos just told Alex off. Four snaps in a Z.</p>

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<p>Chadwick’s comment right after Carlos’ was entertaining (#25)</p>

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<p>Rofl, indeed it was. ^</p>

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<p>The tax break should go towards kids whose parents make over 250,000 because these kids will most likely be able to contribute more highly to society when they graduate.</p>

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<p>[American</a> opportunity tax credit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_opportunity_tax_credit]American”>American Opportunity Tax Credit - Wikipedia)</p>

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<p>They lost me with the community service requirement.</p>

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<p>A $4000 refundable tax credit in exchange for 100 hours on community service. </p>

<p>If you think of it like a job, that’s 40$ an hour.
And at a 501(c)3 organization? That’s pretty much any non-profit XD</p>

<p>EDIT: Let’s see… 40% is refundable so that’s a good 16$/hour if you don’t work. and more free money if you do. sounds pretty good.</p>

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<p>Plan is to require 100 hours of community service.</p>

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<p>yea… it would increase the Department of Education budget by 50%.</p>

<p>Current budget: 66 billion
This plan: 8 million college freshmen x 4000 each = 32 billion</p>

<p>good thing we have lots of extra money to give to people… wait… what?</p>

<p>What service do you think someone who is 18 can possibly provide that is worth $40/hour? Especially at 8 million x 100 = 800,000,000. If there is work that can be done for $40/hour, do you think there is 800,000,000 hours of it available?</p>

<p>This is going to pay people $40/hour to clean a park. This is brilliant use of public money. First we will borrow the money from China so we can give it to you.</p>

<p>And lastly… don’t you think colleges would just raise their prices by $4000 if everyone is starting off with $4000? The colleges can make $4000 extra per freshman with no extra burden to the family…</p>

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<p>No, because colleges are running out of financial aid money.</p>

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<p>How is paying for someone to do community service and go to school worse than paying them to just go to school?</p>

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<p>This sums up the conservative argument:

This sums up the liberal side:

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<p>Ahahah the comments sections on articles are always more fun to read than the articles themselves.</p>

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<p>And as always, the internationals get thrown under the bus…</p>

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<p>Eh no offense bluebubbles but it’s not as if Western European universities are throwing money at us either lol.</p>

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<p>This tax credit is subject to a phase-out for taxpayers with adjusted gross income in excess of $80,000 ($160,000 for married couples filing jointly).</p>

<p>Does this mean it doesn’t apply to taxpayers with gross income of excess $80,000? I wasn’t sure about what they meant by phase-out. </p>

<p>Also, it says in the new act that the total is $2,500. Not the original $4,000?</p>

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<p>^^hyakku is totally right about that. Yeah, it’s hard to get finaid if you’re an international studying in America. But it’s possible. There wasn’t even an option for financial aid when I applied to schools in the UK.</p>

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<p>why should US uni’s provide any aid to international students. You don’t pay into our system to begin with, you aren’t being “screwed”. If you were being screwed, you would be paying into the fin aid system, and not receiving any of the benefits.</p>

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<p>hyakku, that’s because Americans rarely go to Western European colleges.</p>

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<p>bluebubbles: b/c W European colleges don’t offer tax incentives to americans either. It works both ways.</p>

<p>The USA is by far, the most generous in terms of welcoming non-US citizens to study in its colleges. Name a single other nation that has educated more non-natives. (Maybe soviet era Russia! LOL)</p>

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<p>Plus in many countries (much of Western Europe) Universities are free or really cheap, so those folks have the option of free college, no one’s forcing them to pay $200k for a fancy American school. So at this point, I think helping American college students out should be important…most of us can’t go to college for free, even with scholarships to State U’s.</p>