The AJC is reporting that the Southern Education Foundation will file a complaint today with the state Department of Revenue alleging widespread abuses in the controversial private school scholarship tax credit program.
The tax credit has received national media attention because of allegations of misuse. Yet, state Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs, the sponsor of the 2008 law creating the tax credit, is introducing a bill today to expand it.
Critics charge that the abuses — allowing donors to designate the recipients of their donation — have turned the private school scholarships into a back-door voucher. When the General Assembly approved the program, lawmakers said the money would enable poor students in public schools to move to private schools. Instead, the money appears to be going to students already in the private schools.
There have been reports that parents were making donations to schools that were then repackaged as “scholarships” for their own kids. In response to these allegations, the Georgia General Assembly has essentially shielded the program from public scrutiny, making changes in 2011 that make it a crime for state officials to release key information about the program.
According to the AJC:
Since 2008, when legislation established the tax credit program as a way to help students afford private schools, more than $170 million has been set aside for tax credits that could be claimed by donors to student scholarship organizations. State Rep. Earl Ehrhart, the Powder Springs Republican who was a key sponsor of the legislation that established the tax credit program, said he plans to introduce a bill Monday to expand it.
Advocates have called for the amount of state money set aside each year for the tax credits to be increased to $100 million from the $51.5 million per year that was set aside last year. Some legislators, however, have said they want to hold hearings to make sure the program is operating within state law.
Because tax records are not public, it’s difficult to determine how many tax credits may have been improperly claimed.
In its complaint to the Department of Revenue, the SEF said that “it appears that tens of millions of taxpayer dollars in Georgia have been unlawfully diverted from the state treasury through student scholarship organizations during the last four years.”
Read more: AJC
