Committee on Education hears HB 2468 to opt Kansas into federal education tax credit and double state scholarship cap

The Committee on Education convened a hearing on House Bill 2468, which would make Kansas a "covered state" under the federal education tax credit and raise the state scholarship tax-credit cap from $10 million to $20 million, with an automatic 25% escalation if 75% of the cap is used (capped at $30 million). Committee members heard proponent and opponent testimony but did not take a committee vote.

Supporters told the panel the federal provision — created in the Working Families Tax Cut Act — allows individual taxpayers to claim up to $1,700 in federal tax credits for donations to qualified scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs). Vincent Ansch, executive director of the Catholic Education Foundation, told the committee his SGO turned away contributors after the state cap was reached and that "this bill would bump that up to 20,000,000 and take care of it, as we think, for a number of years." He and other proponents said expanding the cap and opting in to the federal credit would keep philanthropic dollars in Kansas and expand…