A recent tough stance by the Internal Revenue Service on employees’ use of cellphones is forcing some colleges to rethink whether and under what conditions they should continue to provide the devices to administrators and staff members. The federal tax agency has been reminding employers that cellphones they provide employees should be treated as taxable income, unless employees can document that their phones are used only for business.
Of course most employees who get cellphones from their employers, including those at colleges, use them a lot for personal calls. So Ohio State University, among others, has decided to treat cellphones as an employee benefit and report the cellphones as income on employees’ W-2 forms. Oakland University is providing its employees with a cellphone stipend ranging from $45 to $90 a month. Baylor University is giving employees the option of accepting the cellphone as an employee benefit or otherwise signing a statement that says they use the cellphone only for business. —Andrea L. Foster
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