Sec. 6003. Education Freedom Scholarships web portal and administration
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The Secretary of the Treasury shall, in coordination with the Secretary of Education, establish, host, and maintain a web portal that— lists all eligible scholarship-granting organizations; enables a taxpayer to make a qualifying contribution to one or more eligible scholarship-granting organizations and to immediately obtain both a pre-approval of a tax credit for that contribution and a receipt for tax filings; provides information about the tax benefits under sections 25E and 45U of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986; and enables a State to submit and update information about its programs and its eligible scholarship-granting organizations for informational purposes only, including information on— student eligibility; allowable educational expenses; the types of allowable education providers; the percentage of funds an organization may use for program administration; and the percentage of total contributions the organization awards in a calendar year.
A taxpayer may opt to make a contribution directly to an eligible scholarship-granting organization, instead of through the web portal described in subsection (a), provided that the taxpayer, or the eligible scholarship-granting organization on behalf of the taxpayer, applies for, and receives pre-approval for a tax credit from the Secretary of the Treasury in coordination with the Secretary of Education. For each fiscal year, the total amount of qualifying contributions for which a credit is allowed under sections 25E and 45U of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 shall not exceed $5,000,000,000.
For each calendar year, with respect to the limitation under paragraph (1), the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of Education, shall— allocate to each State an amount equal to the sum of the qualifying contributions made in the State in the previous year; and from any amounts remaining following allocations made under clause (i), allocate to each participating State an amount equal to the sum of— an amount that bears the same relationship to 20 percent of such remaining amount as the number of individuals aged 5 through 17 in the State, as determined by the Secretary of Education on the basis of the most recent satisfactory data, bears to the number of those individuals in all such States, as so determined; and an amount that bears the same relationship to 80 percent of such remaining amount as the number of individuals aged 5 through 17 from families with incomes below the poverty line in the State, as determined by the Secretary of Education, on the basis of the most recent satisfactory data, bears to the number of those individuals in all such States, as so determined.
Notwithstanding subparagraph (A), no State receiving an allocation under this section may receive less than 1/2 of 1 percent of the amount allocated for a fiscal year. A State may choose to administer the allocation it receives under paragraph
(2)in partnership with one or more States, provided that the eligible scholarship-granting organizations in each partner State serve students who reside in all States in the partnership. A State’s allocation, for any fiscal year, is the sum of the amount determined for such State under subparagraphs
(A)and
(B)of paragraph (2). Not later than November 1 of the year preceding a year for which there is a national limitation on credits under paragraph
(1)(referred to in this section as the applicable year ), or as early as practicable with respect to the first year, the Secretary of the Treasury shall announce the State allocations under paragraph
(2)for the applicable year. Not later than January 1 of each applicable year, or as early as practicable with respect to the first year, each State shall provide the Secretary of the Treasury a list of eligible scholarship-granting organizations, including a certification that the entity submitting the list on behalf of the State has the authority to perform this function. Neither this section nor any other Federal law shall be construed as limiting the entities that may submit the list on behalf of a State. The Secretary of the Treasury shall reallocate a State’s allocation to other States, in accordance with paragraph (2), if the State— chooses not to identify scholarship-granting organizations under subparagraph
(B)in any applicable year; or does not have an existing eligible scholarship-granting organization. On or after April 1 of any applicable year, the Secretary of the Treasury may reallocate, to one or more other States that have eligible scholarship-granting organizations in the States, without regard to paragraph (2), the allocation of a State for which the State’s allocation has not been claimed. Any term used in this section which is also used in section 25E of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 shall have the same meaning as when used in such section.