[eli_gottlieb]

I have been explicitly told by a tax accountant that I cannot. If a third party makes a payment to one of their own offices, even presuming that money exists at all to begin with, I can't claim it on my taxes as income or a credit.

[thwayunion]

The person you're responding to is correct in very specific cases like the GRFP; certain fellowships function differently.

You're correct in the case of 90+% of grad students.

[IG_Semmelweiss]

If this income is not in your W2, then this is very-murky-grey-area-danger-zone stuff.

Students and Universities both could be accused of underreporting income or tax witholdings.

I suspect there are armies of education lawyers that vetted this, but in any other industry, this is simply a no-go zone. You report what you get and what you pay as comp, cash and noncash.

[thwayunion]

Grad students are Very Special in tax code. For example: guess how much grad students and their universities pay in FICA taxes for graduate stipends (can be north of $40K; typically 8% of gross for employee and 8% of gross for employer)? $0.00.

Tuition remissions in particular definitely do not show up on your W-2.

Now, to the question in this thread. If you choose to report tuition as income, you might be able to do that in certain cases, but it's probably because you have some strange reason for wanting to report a higher gross income. I can't even begin think of any reason why that might be. So, murky and likely to cause an audit? Maybe. But then the gov is complaining about getting extra $$$, unless your situation is really fucking weird.

Mind you, this is exactly why I find situations like this so reprehensible. Universities get tons of breaks in how they treat grad student labor. For universities to turn around around and fuck grad students like this, on top of the insulting wages, is beyond the pale.