Trump Will Revoke Harvard University's Tax Free Status

UNSPLASH/Benjamin ILLUSTRATION R.

JAKARTA - United States (US) President Donald Trump said his government would revoke Harvard University's tax-free status, returning to threats he posed against the Massachusetts school last month.

"We will revoke Harvard's Tax Free Status. That's what they deserve!" Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform, without elaborating.

The campus responded by saying it was an abuse of the United States tax law that violated the law, thus becoming a criminal act, opening up new opportunities for the president, vice president, or any White House employee to ask the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to investigate or audit certain individuals or agencies.

Harvard has sued the Trump administration over last month's announcement that the government is freezing federal grants for the University of Ivy League worth $2.2 billion, mostly to fund other medical and scientific research.

Trump previously said on April 15, according to him Harvard may "loss Tax-Free Status and Taxed As A Political Entity if it continues to encourage 'Pregnancy?' inspired/supporting politics, ideology, and terrorists."

Shortly after, White House spokeswoman Harrison Fields said the upcoming IRS actions were independent of the president and any audits or investigations had begun before Trump posted.

Representatives from the Internal Revenue Service did not respond to questions on Friday, May 2.

The tax law requires every IRS employee receiving inappropriate requests from the White House to report the matter to the US Treasury Inspector General for the Tax Administration.

Harvard, the country's oldest and richest university, said its tax-free revocation would violate the law and never before, comments echoed by advocacy groups for free speech and other non-profit organizations on Friday.

"There is no legal basis for lifting Harvard's tax-free status," the school in the Boston area said in a statement.

"Utilization of this instrument broaderly will have serious consequences for the future of higher education in America," the statement continued.