Education Tax Credits are Under Attack in House Bill 632.
GST supports programs to enhance efficiency and competition in providing services, including education.
In 2012, the New Hampshire legislature passed the Opportunity Scholarship Act.
This established tax credits for donations from businesses to scholarship organizations to allow low- and moderate-income families to choose the schools that best fit their children’s needs.
Under the act, Education Tax Credit scholarships can be used by children attending private schools, out-of-district public schools, and home schools.
The Scholarship program has lowered the cost of education for taxpayers.
Education Tax Credit Scholarships are the only mechanism that exists in NH for our most vulnerable low-income children to access a private school or homeschooling materials.
Qualifying students seek alternative educational opportunities due to issues with bullying, academics, discipline, special needs – or a combination of these issues.
Eliminating these scholarships would kill the education scholarship program utilized by hundreds of lower-income families across New Hampshire.
With the average state-wide public education cost of almost $16,000 per student in NH, allowing a child to attend a private school with an average cost to educate in NH of $7,500 represents, in itself, a $8,500 savings. When you further consider – that with the Education Tax Credit Scholarships- the private school, the parent, and the scholarship organization bear that cost together one can see that there is in fact significantly more savings to the NH tax-payer.
Tax-credit scholarship programs nation-wide have generated at least $1.7 billion in taxpayer savings and could be as much as double that. Since inception, the 10 programs studied in the EdChoice Tax Credit Scholarship Audit generated cumulative net savings worth up to $3.4 billion—roughly $3,000 for each program participant. In 2014, the last year of the analysis, the 10 programs generated savings up to $485 million combined. Each program had a net positive cumulative fiscal impact.
Using this conservative figure of a cost savings of $3,000 per student, the NH Education Tax Credit Scholarship Program, which has served 877 students, has generated a tax-payer savings of at least $2,631,000.
Education Tax Credit Scholarship programs generate savings, but it’s up to lawmakers to reallocate that funding. Tax-credit scholarships create local savings when a student leaves the public-school system because the variable costs associated with educating that student are eliminated and state savings due to per-pupil expenditure decrease.
These Education Tax Credit Scholarship programs have expanded the educational opportunities for countless NH families at a fraction of the cost of providing a public education. Eliminating these scholarships would kill the education scholarship program utilized by hundreds of lower-income families across New Hampshire.
House Bill 632 initially removes the application of the education tax credit to taxes due under the interest and dividends tax, and on July 1, 2020 repeals the education tax credit program.
Testify against HB 632 at House Ways and Means Hearing, 11:00 AM Tuesday 2/5/19 in LOB Room 202!
Click here to find your Legislators. Tell them to vote against HB 632!