by David Safier
Things keep moving forward in the story of tuition tax credits paying for children from well-to-do families to go to private schools and STO directors using the nonprofits as their personal ATMs.
According to a Dem legislative press release,
House Democrats also announced the creation of the Task Force on Private School Tuition Tax Credits specifically to address the program’s problems and work on bipartisan legislation to reform it.
“Arizonans have seen this go on for too long,” said House Democratic Leader David Lujan. “Too many questions and concerns have been raised about this program and its reported violations of various laws. We are asking the IRS, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Attorney General Goddard to look into the reported malpractice of this program so we can address this problem and correct it.”
The task force is to be headed by David Schapira, with Tom Chabin as vice chair. From what I've heard, LD-26's Nancy Young Wright will be one of the members.
Give the Trib lots of credit for turning this into a state issue with its in depth investigative reporting. But let's not forget to give our own Jen Darland credit for uncovering the details of this mess in the first place. She's a Tucson citizen who used the internet to find STO tax forms (nonprofit 990 tax forms are public record), business records and a host of other information. I consider myself a fairly competent web sleuth, but Darland puts me to shame. She created a 3 inch thick binder filled with information that formed the starting point for the Trib investigation. Then she and a few other Tucsonans put together a press conference in Phoenix that started the ball rolling.
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