Payment for Honoraria

If a club brings a guest speaker or performer to the college, most likely the guest will be paid an honorarium, or payment for services rendered. Make sure that your guest knows that all honorarium payments from the AAS is taxable income and must be accounted as so when filing taxes at the end of the year.

Be sure that you have secured all funding for your guest's honorarium. The AAS will not pay more to your guest than what has been allocated.

The AAS does not pay deposits to guests before their performances, nor does the AAS issue cash payment. 

Every guest speaker or performer must fill out each of the following every time they will be paid by the AAS, regardless if they have spoken or performed at Amherst in the past:

  • A signed and completed Contract for Services. This ensures that the guest is fully aware of our funding policies and that the club, not the AAS, is liable for any missing funding. The only exception to a speaker not needing to fill out an AAS Contract is if the Office of Student Activities negotiates a contract with the speaker or an agency on the AAS's behalf. 
  • A signed and completed W-9 form. This tells us information about the speaker so that we can prepare 1099 forms (the W-2 equivalent for an independent contractor and not an employee) at the end of the year.

Attach these forms, and an invoice if applicable, to a check request form. Make sure that the check request form includes the appropriate line item and location in the budget of your funding request, and the correct address to which we can mail the check. 

After submitting all of the forms to the box outside of Morrow 020, please allow two weeks to process your check - we will not expedite checks for any reason, so be sure to plan ahead and submit all forms on time.

Regarding payment...

If the honorarium requires payment the night of the event, then all check request forms, Contracts for Services, and W-9 forms must be submitted two weeks before the event date - no exceptions.

If the honorarium will accept payment after the event, then all check request forms, Contracts for Services, and W-9 forms must be submitted within fifteen (15) days after the event date, to ensure that we can pay the honorarium within thirty (30) days of the event date, as stipulated by our Contract for Services.