Eliminate taxes paid on any "forgiven" students loan

Sign this petition if you want total forgiveness on your soon-to-be-forgiven student loans by not having the federal or state require you to pay taxes on the forgiven amount.

There have been many talks on forgiving student loans to stimulate the economy. There is also currently a program through the federal government's Direct Loans that forgive outstanding student loans for those who work in certain professions (such as teaching, civil service, etc) after the individuals makes 120 monthly payments starting in October 2007 while employed in qualified professions. For short, pay your student loans diligently for 10 years and the rest is forgiven.

There is also legislation out there forgiving outstanding student loans for the rest of the population provided that the person has paid their loans diligently for 25 years.

Sounds great, doesn't it? It is a great relief...but not quite until you see the whole picture. We pay taxes on debt forgiven by private creditors. Since there is no legislation written out there on how forgiven student loan debt is treated, consider it treated just like any other debt--if it is forgiven, it is INCOME to you. If it's income to you, then you MUST pay taxes.

There haven't been talks on what happens when 2017 comes, or how these "forgiven" outstanding student loan debts are treated tax-wise (federal and state-wise). These "forgiven" amounts can range from a few hundred dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It sounds untrue, but there are many out there who had to defer their loans due to falling to bad times. Just picture that you're on the road to financial freedom once your student loan debt is forgiven (all without having to file for bankruptcy), only for you to owe thousands of dollars worth in federal and state taxes immediately on the year your outstanding student loan debt is forgiven.

Sign this petition to ask all legislative parties to treat forgiven student loans as non-taxable.