Scholarships and the new Switcher Credit

For those of you who are interested in supporting school choice and have given to AZ4Education or other STO’s, you might have already heard, but in case you haven’t, you can now give twice as much to AZ4Education and it still doesn’t cost you a dime!     That means twice as many tax credits to donators and 2x more dollars for families.

For those who are interested in applying for a scholarship, the process hasn’t changed, it just has a few more qualifications and questions.   In short, we used to have one bucket to pull from for scholarships but now we have two.

For example, let’s say you apply for a scholarship and meet the “need based” requirements stipulated by our STO and the State.    When monies are allocated, you may receive an award, but those funds  would have likely come from the “original tax credit” bucket.

However, if you meet any of the “switcher criteria”, then you may be eligible to receive funds from the “switcher tax credit” bucket.   To qualify for a scholarship under the switcher individual income tax credit, the child must meet one of the following requirements:

  1. Attended a public school as a full-time student for at least 90 days of the prior fiscal year and then transferred from the public school to a private school; or
  2. Is enrolling in a private school kindergarten; or
  3. Is enrolling in a private preschool program for students with disabilities; or
  4. Is a dependent of a member of the armed forces of the United States who is stationed in Arizona pursuant to military orders; or
  5. Received for any year a scholarship under one of the above criteria OR from the low income corporate donation program or the disabled/displaced corporate donation program if the child continued to attend a private school in subsequent years.

Priority is to be given to students and siblings of students on the STO’s waiting list.  Note: An STO can award scholarships out of switcher individual donations on factors in addition to those listed above.

There will be more updates about this new law and we hope this has helped.  Leave a comment if you like or contact us.

 

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