On Thursday, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the nation’s largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization, submitted comments to the U.S. Treasury Department expressing deep concern over proposed tax regulations that would undermine state-sponsored scholarship programs that enable thousands of students to attend Jewish day schools.
The proposed regulations are to implement the new limits to the deductibility of the State and Local Tax (SALT) payments contained in the new tax law Congress passed last year. The proposed regulations would provide that individual taxpayers who receive a state or local tax credit for contributing to state-supported scholarship programs would have to reduce any charitable deduction for that contribution on their federal taxes by the amount of the state tax credit. Such state-supported education tax credit programs exist in more than 15 states.
The proposed rules would particularly harm Jewish day schools and yeshivas in Pennsylvania and Florida, where 40 percent and 25 percent of Jewish day school students, respectively, receive tax credit scholarships worth more than $31 million combined. The Orthodox Union has been working together with other leading school choice organizations to modify the proposed regulations so they don’t harm existing tax credit programs.
“The regulations, if implemented, will significantly depress financial contributions to K-12 scholarship programs and wreak financial havoc on many schools and families across the United States,” the Orthodox Union’s comments state.
Said Orthodox Union Executive Director for Public Policy Nathan Diament:
“Changes to the tax law should not be made at the expense of educational opportunity. Existing tax credit programs provide hundreds of thousands of children access to a quality education that their families wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford.”
Said OU President Mark (Moishe) Bane:
“President Trump has called educational opportunity ‘the civil rights issue of our time.’ We urge the Treasury Department to ensure that IRS regulations are consistent with this policy priority.”
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4 Responses
Obviously we all want things like this, and I wish they had it in NY, but it’s going to be hard to convince the govt that making a donation, and then getting something back in return, qualifies as a real donation.
Policy brought to you by the degenerate lying adulterer and his party in order to give tax breaks to the wealthy
rt: you are referring to Governor Cuomo? He’s the one who is trying to abuse the system for the benefit of wealthy New Yorkers.
The new regulation is in order to prevent states and local governments from deliberately cheating the federal treasury by setting up so-called “charities” that are operated by the government, and pay for things that would otherwise be paid for by the government, and then directing taxpayers to make “donations” to these “charities” instead of paying taxes. These “donations” are just taxes disguised in order to be deductible, and of course the IRS is not going to allow it.
What they need to do is come up with a definition that excludes these long-established scholarship funds that aren’t operated by the government and don’t defray what would otherwise be a government expense.