My husband is in the process of negotiating a position with a large public university:) . In our dreams:rolleyes: , we'd like all the help/money we can get to cover our relocation costs (i.e. movers, house hunting, realtor's commission to sell our home, closing costs on a new home, etc.). Moving furniture alone is 17K (I got 2 estimates) which the university will definitely cover. It is my understanding that moving company expenses (if paid directly by the university) will not show up on my husband's W-2 form. I believe meals while traveling, airfare one time to buy a home, and maybe some other miscellaneous items can also be paid by the university and not show up on our W-2. So my question then is, how do we ask/negotiate for the other large expenses to be paid? In particular, the realtor's commission and closing on a new home I estimate to be 30K minimum :eek: . If the university comes in with an offer that includes a sign-on bonus to cover expenses like realtor's commission and closing costs, we'd have to pay taxes up front. Note any money we'd make on our current home (if we make any money at all given this bad housing market) would go into a new home. I also do not think the university will pay the realtor or lender directly for closing costs like some companies do (which we had happen when we had a company pay for our move---very nice:) ). The university will pay the moving company directly though.

Any advice? From a tax perspective, what is the best way to handle our negotiations so it is most advantageous to us? Note the university definitely will pay to move my husband's chemical lab, 2 postdocs, and give him a ~400K start-up package, so really personal relo expenses are small and a one time cost to them.

Thank you in advance for your advice:)

Sincerely

After checking out the IRS website it looks like we'll have to ask for a gross up on any sign-on bonus to cover the taxes so the remaining amount covers our big upfront expenses (realtor's commission and closing costs on a new home). This stinks!:(

Yes, you need to ask for a gross-up, as the realtor commission and the clsoing costs are NOT deductible.

However, any profit you make on the sale of your house is NOT taxable if it is under $500,000.

I will recommend you Google the some more cheap rate movers to manage your budget because lots of them can easily negotiate with you on many terms.