We have great news about more progress on the international tax issue! Columbia just announced several major steps forward in addressing the problems they created by misreporting our tax deductions to the IRS for 2014. In case you did not receive the email from Columbia Human Resources, you may read it here, but below is a summary.
- the IRS has agreed to fix Columbia’s misreporting from 2014 in bulk, rather than on a case-by-case basis for those of us affected
- the IRS will expedite resolving the problem and processing corrected versions of tax returns, which they expect to happen no earlier than late April
- for those who are financially in need as a result of Columbia’s reporting errors and the subsequent delays, Columbia offers cash advances
Unfortunately, many of us have spent hours and hours trying to address our individual situations, time taken away from our research and teaching, and the problem still could take some time to resolve. However, while we wish this problem had never occurred in the first place, and we wish that Columbia would have moved much more quickly to secure this assurance form the IRS as well as to offer temporary financial relief, we are pleased that our petition, with over 1,000 signatures, and several delegations meeting with Deans has led to this progress. We also want to thank US Representative Jerry Nadler for intervening and helping us move Columbia to work harder with the IRS to resolve these problems.
We will keep you posted if we learn more. If you continue to have questions, please contact us and we will do our best to provide answers.