grammyklt
9-22-2006, 3:08 PM
From: "Berger, Jonah Arkin" <Berger_Jonah@<hidden>>
[Add to Address Book]
To: "Berger, Jonah Arkin" <Berger_Jonah@<hidden>>
Subject: Thanks for participating in the Consumer Choices Study
Date: Thursday, September 21, 2006 12:42:30 PM [View Source]
Congratulations!
You have been randomly selected from the participants in the Consumer Choices study to receive a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate!
To claim your gift certificate, I will need some brief tax information so that I can get reimbursed for paying you
1) Your name
2) Your address
3) Your social security #
I’m sorry to ask for all this, but we absolutely need this information for tax purposes. I must receive all this information to be able to send you the certificate and once I receive the information I will send the certificates out.
Thanks again for participating and we look forward to your future participation in GSB behavioral lab studies!
---------------------------------------------------------------
I emailed and told them I didn't think SO!
Recieved this one back.
From: "GSB Behavioral Lab" <BehavioralLab@<hidden>>
Subject: RE: Email I recieved
Date: Thursday, September 21, 2006 7:36:43 PM [View Source]
Hi
I can assure you that this is not a scam. Jonah Berger Arkin is a PhD student at
the Stanford Graduate School of Business. You participated in a study of his in
which your participation entered you into a drawing. You were selected when the
drawing happened and so will receive an Amazon gift card. All of this, you
probably were told in Jonah's email. There has been some recent policy changes
with regards to how participants get compensated and researchers reimbursed that
requires this information to be provided.
This is a long, but hopefully thorough explanation for why we ask for such
information. We ask for your Social Security Number because of a change in
policy in how researchers get reimbursed for payment of participants in their
experiments. First, researchers pay all participants out of their own pockets.
This means that most of Amazon.com gift certificates that go out to participants
are paid for graduate students at Stanford University. After paying the
participants, the researchers must submit their receipts to the Controller's
office at Stanford University. In the past, these requests have gone through
the Behavioral Research Lab to the Controller's office. Increasingly, we are
asking researchers and their faculty advisors to go directly to the Controllers
office, to minimize confusion. Administrators there, who are not involved with
the research in anyway, then process the requests for reimbursement. Of late, we
have experienced significant delays in getting approval of these reimbursements.
In particular, the Controller's office has indicated the following:
"Paying human subjects for services require documentation of tax information and
is an IRS rule. We have made minor exceptions in the past for small dollar
amounts ($5 to $10). Higher payments per subject require tax data to be kept and
provided for audit and tax reporting purposes (§61(a))."
This statement is in reference to an IRS section which in turn requires Stanford
University to tax report income (excluding any other limitations or threshold
exclusions) §61(a) and provides that "gross income means all income from
whatever source derived," subject only to the exclusions specifically enumerated
elsewhere in the code.
We realize that this is an inconvenience for you and apologize that you were not
aware of this before participating in the study. We understand the security and
privacy issue in submitting such personal information over email. If you would
like, you can call Jonah, me, or a contact in the Office of the Controller
provide the information directly.
Please let me know how you would like to proceed from here.
Sincerely,
Rebecca Schaumberg
GSB Behavioral Lab
Stanford University
[Add to Address Book]
To: "Berger, Jonah Arkin" <Berger_Jonah@<hidden>>
Subject: Thanks for participating in the Consumer Choices Study
Date: Thursday, September 21, 2006 12:42:30 PM [View Source]
Congratulations!
You have been randomly selected from the participants in the Consumer Choices study to receive a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate!
To claim your gift certificate, I will need some brief tax information so that I can get reimbursed for paying you
1) Your name
2) Your address
3) Your social security #
I’m sorry to ask for all this, but we absolutely need this information for tax purposes. I must receive all this information to be able to send you the certificate and once I receive the information I will send the certificates out.
Thanks again for participating and we look forward to your future participation in GSB behavioral lab studies!
---------------------------------------------------------------
I emailed and told them I didn't think SO!
Recieved this one back.
From: "GSB Behavioral Lab" <BehavioralLab@<hidden>>
Subject: RE: Email I recieved
Date: Thursday, September 21, 2006 7:36:43 PM [View Source]
Hi
I can assure you that this is not a scam. Jonah Berger Arkin is a PhD student at
the Stanford Graduate School of Business. You participated in a study of his in
which your participation entered you into a drawing. You were selected when the
drawing happened and so will receive an Amazon gift card. All of this, you
probably were told in Jonah's email. There has been some recent policy changes
with regards to how participants get compensated and researchers reimbursed that
requires this information to be provided.
This is a long, but hopefully thorough explanation for why we ask for such
information. We ask for your Social Security Number because of a change in
policy in how researchers get reimbursed for payment of participants in their
experiments. First, researchers pay all participants out of their own pockets.
This means that most of Amazon.com gift certificates that go out to participants
are paid for graduate students at Stanford University. After paying the
participants, the researchers must submit their receipts to the Controller's
office at Stanford University. In the past, these requests have gone through
the Behavioral Research Lab to the Controller's office. Increasingly, we are
asking researchers and their faculty advisors to go directly to the Controllers
office, to minimize confusion. Administrators there, who are not involved with
the research in anyway, then process the requests for reimbursement. Of late, we
have experienced significant delays in getting approval of these reimbursements.
In particular, the Controller's office has indicated the following:
"Paying human subjects for services require documentation of tax information and
is an IRS rule. We have made minor exceptions in the past for small dollar
amounts ($5 to $10). Higher payments per subject require tax data to be kept and
provided for audit and tax reporting purposes (§61(a))."
This statement is in reference to an IRS section which in turn requires Stanford
University to tax report income (excluding any other limitations or threshold
exclusions) §61(a) and provides that "gross income means all income from
whatever source derived," subject only to the exclusions specifically enumerated
elsewhere in the code.
We realize that this is an inconvenience for you and apologize that you were not
aware of this before participating in the study. We understand the security and
privacy issue in submitting such personal information over email. If you would
like, you can call Jonah, me, or a contact in the Office of the Controller
provide the information directly.
Please let me know how you would like to proceed from here.
Sincerely,
Rebecca Schaumberg
GSB Behavioral Lab
Stanford University