EMERSON PROPOSES FELLOWSHIP BE TAX EXEMPT

U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson Wednesday introduced a bill to renew the tax-exempt status of the Christa McAuliffe Fellowship, named after the teacher who lost her life in the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger explosion.

"Taxing these fellowships doesn't help teachers, it doesn't help students, and it doesn't help education as a whole," Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, said in a statement concerning the bill.

For some reason, Emerson said, Congress allowed the fellowship's tax-exempt status to expire in 1990. So, if a teacher gets a fellowship and devotes those funds to school projects, the teacher must pay the taxes out-of-pocket, he said.

"One recipient told me she did not know of the tax implications at the time she applied for the fellowship, and had she been aware of the personal costs she would incur, she never would have applied for the fellowship in the first place," he said.

The award is given to outstanding teachers across the country to improve their knowledge and teaching skills, as well as to encourage innovative methods of learning in the classroom, Emerson's office said.

The office said Emerson's plan would revert the tax rules to the time the fellowship was created in 1986. Burdensome after-award costs would not be collected from the recipient, it said.

Emerson said the fellowship isn't personal income and shouldn't be treated as such. If it is, he said, it could push the recipient into a higher tax bracket.

"I hope my colleagues in the House join me in putting an end to this unfair burden on our nation's deserving teachers," he said.

Last week Emerson announced that Sheila Denise Perry, third-grade teacher at Bloomfield Elementary, is one of 68 Christa McAuliffe Fellows named by the U.S. Department of Education. Perry, the only recipient from Missouri, was awarded $34,800 for her project titled "OSCARS in the Classroom," his office said.