Tuition tax credit task force meeting

by David Safier
The task force on tuition tax credits met in Phoenix this morning. I was only able to catch the last 20 minutes of the 2 hour session. (Actually I was in front of my computer the whole time with the video viewer up but didn't know I had to hit the button again once the session started. But it would be too embarrassing to say that out loud. I just what? Damn!)

The part I caught was mostly conversation between the legislators. I learned that Rich Crandall, who's the Republican chair of the House Education Committee, is going to do his damndest to make sure there is little or no reform of tuition tax credits.

For instance, he likes the idea of "earmarks," meaning people should be able to specify what child the credit money goes to. If the kid is willing to hustle to get that money, he said, then s/he deserves it. As if it was like a Girl Scout selling cookies door to door. Uh uh, Rich, you know better than that. It's the parents who hustle up tax credit money, not the kids. And mainly parents with financial means, since they're the most likely to know people who are going to have the income to take the credit in the first place. So the recipient of the biggest bucks — bucks that would otherwise go into the state coffers — tend to be the families with the highest income.

As a matter of fact, Crandall doesn't see why parents shouldn't be able to "earmark" tax credits for their own kids. Except that's what they call illegal. It's not a tax deductible contribution if you benefit directly. As a matter of fact, no one can actually "earmark" the money now. You can only "recommend" your credit dollars go to a certain child. By law, the STO has to make the final decision — which happens to be to honor the donor's recommendation in most cases.

And for that matter, it's OK by Crandall for the child to get scholarships from multiple STOs, if the kid is willing to hustle. So between "earmarks" and multiple scholarships, I guess there's no problem with a child getting a full private school ride on the taxpayer's dime. Actually, that's the conservative dream. They call it "school choice" or "market based education." Most people call it "vouchers."

And means testing? Be careful with that, Crandall says. After all, a 6 figure income really isn't that much for some people. Crandall himself has 7 children (I think that's the number he said), so he needs more income than most to make ends meet.

Fair enough. But means testing generally takes the number of people in the family into account. For instance, for a family of 2 — single parent and child — to be on reduced lunch, the maximum yearly income has to be below $27,000. For a family of 9 like Crandall's, the magic number is $75,000. So if tuition tax credit scholarships were linked to income, and it were set at, say, 150% of reduced lunch, Crandall and his wife could make as much as $110,000 a year and still qualify.

Crandall wants to add "transparency" to the law, whatever that means, but otherwise keep things pretty much the way they are.

Did I mention he's the Chair of the House Education Committee?