Beginning in tax year 2024, the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit will provide parents of students in a private school a refundable tax credit ranging from a minimum of $5,000 to a maximum of $7,500 per child to cover the cost of private school tuition and fees.
The enrollment period is from Dec 6 to Feb 1, 2024.
“There’s a private company called Merit that is processing everything,” Principal David Morton said. “You have to get a verification form from the school that the student is actually enrolled here at school, and then you submit all your tax information that goes through Merit. Then if you qualify, the money is distributed.”
The amount of money an applicant receives is based on the adjusted gross income of the student’s household during the second preceding tax year.
“It’s broken down into categories,” Morton said. “They’ve assured everybody who’s family household income is $150,000 or less that you’re guaranteed to get up to $7,500 for the year. If you’re over that, then it’s incrementally done.”
The credits will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis until the funding cap for the year, $150 million, is reached.
“One of the interesting things is they’ve encouraged everybody to apply whether you’re at the 150 threshold or above,” Morton said. “Let’s say you are over 150, no matter what, even if you make a million dollars a year, if your application is in on December 1, and a person who makes $150,001 their application is in on December 7, they’ll take the December 6 application first.”
Morton thinks the tax credit is potentially a great thing, but he has reservations about whether it will work out in the long term.
“My nervousness with it is for our families,” Morton said. “If you start depending upon it, and then all of a sudden it’s pulled away, then it has a negative effect. I’m not convinced our legislators were totally convinced that this was the right thing to do. They voted for it. It passed. But if it were to come up again next spring will it be continued? I don’t know.”
Other concerns have been expressed about the tax credit’s effect on public school’s funding.
“They insist that it’s going to have no impact on public schools,” Morton said. “Now that being said, public schools are funded by the people in those communities who pay taxes and so they have to turn in their ADM (average daily membership) every year to the State Department because that part impacts their funding. Well, if a school that’s been 2,000 students suddenly has 1,500 students, that’s got to be a negative impact on the school. I think this is a wait and see thing.”
