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Sunday, June 13, 2010

Light shed on housing for college presidents - The Boston Globe

Light shed on housing for college presidents - The Boston Globe

Light shed on housing for college presidents

New IRS guidelines require estimate on compensation deals

(Top Photo: Zara Tzanev for The Boston Globe/Below: Photos By Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff)
By Tracy Jan
Globe Staff / June 13, 2010
Harvard’s president lives on Cambridge’s historic Tory Row in a 12-room Colonial whose rental value the university estimates to be $8,000 a month. Northeastern says its president’s five-story Beacon Hill town house with Boston Common as its front yard would rent for just $6,225 a month. And the MIT president’s stone manse, with sweeping views of the Charles River and Boston skyline, would go for even less — $5,800 a month.
For the first time, the IRS this year is requiring private colleges and universities and other nonprofits to factor in the value of certain nontaxable perks — such as the estimated fair-market rents of the housing many schools provide for presidents — in reporting executives’ total compensation packages.
The new rules, effective with the 2008 tax filingscolleges submitted last month, aim to capture a more accurate and transparent picture of how top administrators are rewarded. But a Globe examination of the latest filings from 10 Greater Boston colleges shows a wide variation in how schools interpret the requirement.
The priciest presidential home, according to the documents, belongs to Boston


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