AASA Comments on Treasury’s Approach to Federal Tax Credit Voucher Program

In December, AASA submitted a joint public comment to the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service regarding the federal tax credit program for contributions to scholarship-granting organizations.

Throughout our comments, we urged Treasury and IRS to further the Administration’s goal of returning education to the States and prioritize state discretion and innovation in the design of the program. To the extent that the agencies are willing to consider any measures related to taxpayer accountability for the program, we requested that the agencies affirm that States have the authority to: 

• Chart students academic progress who receive scholarships,
• Aggressively monitor waste, fraud and abuse in SGOs
• Retain eligibility requirements for existing scholarship programs and collect information about families who use the federal tax credit education program
• Ensure SGOs only partner with schools and vendors that meet with basic state and local health, safety, and teacher qualification standards
  

In addition to the need to ensure the Congressionally intended control of these programs is fully realized for states, we also had several technical issues we wanted Treasury to address in guidance and regulations. You can read the comments here.