What is the tax status of COAP Fund disbursements?
Although, Cornell cannot act as an individuals tax adviser we are providing some general information about support under COAP. For Cornell employees, such as faculty members, paid researchers, and staff, the payment or reimbursement of open-access publication fees may reasonably be viewed as a “working condition fringe” (defined in Internal Revenue Code Section 132 as any property or service provided by an employer to an employee to the extent that, if the employee paid for the property or service, the payment would represent a deductible employee business expense). Since working condition fringe benefits are excludible from income, amounts reimbursed to employees from the COAP Fund would not be includible in income on the employee’s Form W-2, and would not be subject to any reporting or withholding. For non-employees (e.g. students, post doc “fellows”, etc.) the payment or reimbursement of the fees does qualify as a “working condition fringe.” The University treats such support as sch
