Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the personal deduction for relocation expenses and the exclusion from income of employer-paid relocation expenses are suspended from January 1, 2018 through December 31, 2025.  As a result, all moving expenses incurred on or after January 1, 2018, whether reimbursed to an individual or paid to a vendor on behalf of an individual, are taxable income to the individual.

As with past years, all BU employees (including student employees) have the option of receiving their 2018 federal W2 tax forms online, as opposed to via paper copies.  This can be done by accessing the Employee Self Service/ESS tab in BUWorks, and choosing W-2 Election under the “Benefits and Pay” header.  Instructions on how to make this selection can be found here.  The benefits to choosing this option are:

• Earlier access to your W-2
• Ability to file earlier
• It can’t ever get lost
• It saves labor and printing costs for the University
• Student employees (numbering roughly 17,000) can still access their forms, even if they’re no longer living in the residence halls, housing, etc on file at the time of the mailing

Surveys of peer institutions have found that the percentages of employees who opt in for electronic W-2s range from 30% to 90% — in 2017, BU employees had an online election rate of 22% of faculty/staff, and 1.5% of students.  This is an area in which a little bit of individual effort across the University can make great contributions toward sustainability, cost reduction, etc.

But we need your help!

In order to wire funds to a foreign vendor, the department submitting the request must indicate ‘Wire’ as the disposition on the disbursement request form.  It is also required that a letter be submitted from the bank/institution that is to receive the wire payment, or a copy of a voided check. A sample letter can be viewed here.

If a foreign vendor is not already a registered BU vendor, a W8-BEN (for an individual) or W8-BEN-E (for an institution) will need to be filled out in order to complete their vendor registration.  These can be found at the IRS website.

Please also remember that, in addition to the steps/documents above, all disbursement requests require appropriate backup documentation in order to be processed.  The FAST sheets and Foreign National Tax Information pages will include the materials specific to the types of payment that you need to make.

Some of the processes and procedures for Payroll, Travel, and Accounts Payable have numerous details, so as a way to consolidate a lot of the “must know” items, we’ve begun the process of creating FAST sheets for the following topics:

• Awards
• Stipends
• Non-service Stipends
• Study Subject payments
• Honoraria
• Travel Card

In collaboration with Travel Services, Sourcing & Procurement is pleased to announce a partnership with United Airlines. This partnership includes discounted fares on several airlines and a chance to earn 3,000 bonus award miles with United Airlines for business travel through February 28, 2019.  More information, including how to book, can be found here.