You may remember that in June I posted an entry talking about real student loan forgiveness. In that entry, I asked that you contact your Representative in the House to demand that a ridiculous clause in the public loan forgiveness program be fixed. Here is more information from the folks at IBRinfo:
In addition to lowering monthly student loan payments, IBR forgives any remaining debt — including interest — after 25 years of payments. Most borrowers will pay off their debt before then, but under current law, if there’s anything left after 25 years, the amount forgiven would be taxed as income to the borrower.
A bipartisan bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, H.R.2492, would prevent debt forgiven through IBR from being taxed as income. Loan forgiveness is supposed to wipe the slate clean for responsible borrowers, not create a new financial obligation.
Many of you have already taken action, helping to persuade over 20 Members of Congress to sign on in support of the bill. We need your help to bring more on board! If you haven’t already, please take a moment to urge your representative to support H.R. 2492.
If you are interested in taking action (and I really hope that you DO choose to take action), you can click over to the IBR website and use their pre-formatted web page to send a message to your Representative. Please do so and help fix a bogus loophole in this Bill!