A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE
There’s a homeschooling tax-credit bill pending in Iowa. HSLDA has come out against it. I (sort of) agree, but I don’t like their rationale:
This bill would allow a tax credit for 25% of the first $1,000 dollars spent on each dependant towards expenses relating to competent private instruction. The bill currently has language which includes the phrase “home schooling.” However, in Iowa “home schooling” is legally known as “competent private instruction” and adding “home schooling” to the law would create an undefined category. Thus, we will support the bill if “home schooling” is replaced with “competent private instruction.”
The bill allows for a tax credit for textbooks and tuition:
“Textbooks” means books and other instructional materials and equipment used in teaching only those subjects legally and commonly taught in public elementary and secondary schools in this state and does not include instructional books and materials used in the teaching of religious tenets, doctrines, or worship, the purpose of which is to inculcate those tenets, doctrines, or worship. “Textbooks” includes books or materials used for extracurricular activities, including sporting events, musical or dramatic events, speech activities, driver’s education, or programs of a similar nature.
“Tuition” means any charges for the expenses of personnel, buildings, equipment, and materials other than textbooks, and other expenses which relate to the teaching only of those subjects legally and commonly taught in public elementary and secondary schools in this state and which do not relate to the teaching of religious tenets, doctrines, or worship, the purpose of which is to inculcate those tenets, doctrines, or worship. “Tuition” includes those expenses which relate to extracurricular activities, including sporting events, musical or dramatic events, speech activities, driver’s education, or programs of a similar nature.
I have a couple a problems with this bill that have nothing to do with inserting the phrase “home schooling” into law. (As an aside, the irony that HSLDA should oppose this bill for that reason is striking.) First, I assume that the religious materials exclusion was placed in there to keep from running afoul of Iowa’s Blaine Amendment. But that interpretation would require the understanding that the state equates a tax credit with using tax dollars to “building or repairing places of worship, or the maintenance of any minister, or ministry.” There’s a fundamental difference, in my mind, between a tax credit (individuals paying fewer dollars to the state) and the state paying to support a ministry. Besides, what is a very religious family, who may use all religious-based texts, to do? Lie?
The solution for this first problem would be to strike all of the religious materials exclusion language.
My second problem with this bill is more fundamental and couldn’t be quite so easily fixed. The tax credit will be based on some tax bureaucrat’s interpretation of what is a legitimate expense. So home educators are going to have to save their receipts and then, if audited, be prepared to argue that the books or tuition fit the definitions above. And if the bureaucrat disagrees? A fix here would require a straight tax credit of $250 per child for “competent private instruction” in lieu of using the public schools.
This is a bad bill, period. The religious materials exclusions are problematic on a couple of levels. The proof that home educators will be required to maintain even worse.
OTOH, it will put hundreds of dollars back into the pockets of many Iowa home educators. Is it worth fighting to fix the language at the risk of possibly killing the whole deal? That’s for Iowans to decide.
One Response to “A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE”
 Comment by Scott W. Somerville February 1st, 2006 at 11:13 am |
Actually, Daryl, I treat Iowa as one of the 12 states WITHOUT a Blaine Amendment. In my other life as treasurer of Lampstand Press, Ltd., which produces “Tapestry of Grace,” I’ve gotten checks from Iowa school districts for copies of TOG. The first time I got such a check I ran to read the Iowa Constitution to see whether they were breaking the law. It turns out they aren’t. But the fact that Iowa’s Constitution does not prohibit spending tax dollars on religious educational materials does NOT mean that Iowa’s Legislature believes in a truly free market in education. Hence, this bill. |