Fellowship Tax Information for U.S. Citizens & Residents

NOTE: The information provided below is not a substitute for professional/government tax counseling or for reading Internal Revenue Service and California Tax Board publications. Please consult with a qualified individual for more detailed information concerning applicable tax policies and regulations. The university is unable to provide specific tax advice to individuals.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the California Franchise Tax Board (FTB) consider graduate fellowships taxable income. A portion of fellowship may be excludable from your gross income. Your fellowship payments may include fee, nonresident-tuition, or stipend awards. Any such payments which are given to you through the Graduate Student Support Office and which are not wage payments for your services are considered “true scholarship.” Within this broad category of fellowship support, your income can be divided into two distinct groups: “qualified scholarship” and nonexcludable stipend. Your fee awards, nonresident-tuition awards, and teaching-assistant/research-assistant fee remissions are considered “qualified scholarship” and are not subject to tax. In addition, you may also be able to exclude from stipend payments the amount you spend in the calendar year on required course expenses (expenses required by the course and/or the university for all students in order to enroll). Required expenses may include books and other course-related expenses. Please view the publications listed below in order to receive complete instructions and regulations on the calculation of taxable scholarship income. NOTE: Salary you receive for your services, such as teaching-assistant/research-assistant paychecks, are not included in the category “true scholarship.”

US citizens, permanent residents, refugee, asylees, or residents for tax purposes do not have Federal or State income taxes withheld from their stipends. If you are a US citizen, permanent resident, refugee, asylee, or resident for tax purposes you may have to make estimated quarterly tax payments, as needed, directly to the IRS/FTB on your stipend income. Please obtain the estimated tax publications listed below in order to assess whether or not you will need to make estimated quarterly tax payments.

Permanent residents, refugees, or asylees, are required to submit the W-9 form to our office only once. We use this form to determine your tax status under the law. You may access this form off of the Tax Information & Forms page.

Visit the 1098-T web site to view your or own 1098-T information that will be reported by UCLA to the IRS. The site also provides information about the Hope Scholarship and Lifetime Learning Tax Credits and the Tuition and Fees Deduction for higher education expenses.

Internal Revenue Service
1-800-TAX-FORM

The documents below are linked from the Internal Revenue Service site.

California Franchise Tax Board
1-800-852-5711

The documents below are updated yearly, please select “current year forms” on the California Franchise Tax Board site to view the latest versions.