HARRISBURG- A group of Pennsylvania Senators are pushing Governor Josh Shapiro to opt the Commonwealth into a new federal tax credit program that the former say \u201ccould help empower parents and create new learning opportunities for students.\u201d<\/p>\n
The newly rolled out Federal Scholarship Tax Credit was created by Congress last year to support both public and private schools. Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R-39)<\/a>,\u00a0Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman<\/a>,\u00a0Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Scott Martin<\/a>,\u00a0Senate Education Committee Chair Lynda Schlegel Culver<\/a>,\u00a0Sen. Judy Ward,<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Sen. Anthony Williams <\/a>announced this week they plan to introduce legislation<\/a> to codify the state\u2019s entrance to the program.<\/p>\n The program would allow taxpayers to earn up to $1,700 in tax credits for contributions to non-profit Scholarship Granting Organizations. These organizations could use the funds to provide scholarships for education-related services at private or public schools, including tuition, fees, academic tutoring, special education services, technology services and classroom supplies.<\/p>\n For students and families to be eligible for scholarships, a state must opt in with either an order signed by its governor or a law passed by the state legislature by Jan. 1, 2027. If a state does not opt in, taxpayers in that state will still be eligible for the tax credit, but the money will fund scholarships in other states.<\/p>\n At least 30 states have already opted into the program that is estimated to generate a fresh $24 billion nationwide in education funding annually. Hundreds of millions of dollars could be sent to Pennsylvania annually if the state opts into the program.<\/p>\n Initial\u00a0guidance<\/a>\u00a0on the program was released by the federal government in June, and the IRS expects that full regulations will be issued in September.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Education Secretary Linda McMahon<\/a> came to Harrisburg to push the state to join the program. Prior to the trip, McMahon penned an op-ed that was published by the outlet\u00a0PennLive<\/a>\u00a0urging Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro to \u201csupport education freedom.\u201d McMahon said that, \u201ca staggering\u00a078%<\/a>\u00a0of Pennsylvania voters from varying demographics and party affiliations champion the state opting in to the Education Freedom Tax Credit. This consensus demonstrates that education freedom is not a partisan issue-it is a shared priority for families seeking opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HARRISBURG- A group of Pennsylvania Senators are pushing Governor Josh Shapiro to opt the Commonwealth into a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[529,26416,12448,110681,33530,110682,539,110683,28,30,29,9746,51669,2261],"class_list":["post-261142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-bill","tag-bipartisan","tag-credit","tag-dollars","tag-millions","tag-opt","tag-pa","tag-penning","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-scholarship","tag-senators","tag-tax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}