What is the Tax Credit Program?
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The state of Virginia setup the Virginia Education Improvement Scholarship Tax Credit Program (EISTC): https://www.tcfhr.org/virginia-education-improvement-scholarship-tax-credit-program/ program to help provide low income families an opportunity to attend a private school like RVCS.
This program allow residents and businesses of the state of Virginia who pay state taxes the ability to allocate a portion of their payments to approved Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs). These organizations work with schools like RVCS to provide scholarships to families in need. The two main organizations RVCS partners with are Renewanation and Association of Christian Schools International (ASCI).
Renewanation has a very helpful website: http://vascholarshipfoundation.org/faq/ that answers many regarding the program. With the new tax reform, there have been some slight changes, but the impact is still significant to most donors. For many donors this allows them to multiply their giving and have greater control over where their taxes monies are going.
Brief Overview of How the process works:
Donor completes pre-authorization process. Contact Zac Hellkamp for digital form.
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This does not commit the donor to anything. This is asking the state permission to give monies to an approved Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO) and receive a tax credit.
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Minimum donation: $500/individual
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Maximum: $125,000/individual (if married, each spouse may give up to the max.)
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No limits for business donations.
This form is either submitted directly to an SGO or the Virginia Department of Education.
We recommend submitting it directly to an SGO as they can track its approval process and in many cases have approval the same day.
We utilize the following two organizations:
1. Renewanantion (Curtis Cornell curtis@renewanation.org is our contact here
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​​They can send a personalized link for donor approval
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Process takes about a day
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Benefit of having them file the preauthorization form is that they can track it for a donor​.
2. ACSI – Children’s Tuition Fund​​
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Have a very similar process via online
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Not local but the process is quick.
Once approval is granted, the donor will receive the approval form. They are to submit this with their donation to one of the approved SGO’s.
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Donors have up to 180 days to give once approved
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Donors do not have to give the full amount they are approved for, but must meet the min. donation requirement in order qualify for the program.
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Donors are not permitted to write anything in the memo section.
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Donors are permitted to include a note asking for monies to be preferred to a specific school if they have qualified students.
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Donors may spread their donation over the 180 day (e.g., two separate check for half the amt.). If they spread the donation over more than one payment, they will need to photo copy their approval letter
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Once the form and donation is received, the SGO will notify the state. The state in return will issue a tax credit form to the donor who will hold on to this and apply it to the current year’s taxes.
With their donation, they will receive a 65% state tax credit. This credit can be carried up to 5 years.
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THE PROCESS IS STRAIGHTFORWARD, BUT OFTEN MANY QUESTIONS ARISE. FEEL FREE TO REACH OUT TO US AT ANY TIME SO WE MAY ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS RBROWN@SBCFAMILY.ORG
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