A Present From IRS

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) gets its man, even if it takes five years. When two Crimson reporters in 1974 filed for a reward to find out whether their study of Harvard-owned private houses for faculty had turned up any tax irregularities, they didn't expect any response.

They didn't get any, either, until last December, when Andrew P. Corty '74 and Steven M. Luxenberg '74 each received checks for $493.50 from the IRS.

Under the IRS code--which offers a reward of 10 per cent of any back taxes collected for information--the bureau apparently collected about $10,000 in personal income tax from Harvard faculty members who had rented their homes from the University in 1974 or before.

The faculty members would have to pay income tax on the difference between the market value of the houses they had rented and the lower rents Harvard was chargin them.

Today, the University has sold nearly all of the houses to the faculty members who live in them--it now owns only about eight private houses, Sally Zeckhauser, president of Harvard Real Estate Inc., said.

And though this may anger Cambridge residents and community leaders who see it as just another way for Harvard to gobble up local real estate, it solves the tax problem for the professors.

Corty said yesterday that he and Luxenberg filed for the fees because the IRS told them that it was the only way they would learn whether their studies led to any action.

Now the two plan to donate the IRS money to an investigative reporters' fund, Corty said.

But before they send off the money, they will have to pay income tax on it--as the tax collectors made sure to remind them in the letters that accompanied their checks.