January 2020 Parent Update


BEST FUNDRAISING MONTH OF 2019
We had our best fundraising month of 2019 in December and are actively raising money for scholarships as we enter 2020. All of our incumbents were fully funded for the fall semester. As in previous years, we will distribute funds to new incumbents – the students who received $600 last year – as funds are available.      

SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATIONS FOR 2020-2021
We will open applications for the 2020-2021 school year on July 1st. We will have more information on that in the coming weeks. Please be looking for updates and details in our upcoming newsletters.      

OUTREACH TO IRS…
Thanks to those of you who have already made comments to the IRS.  If you haven’t done so already, the instructions are below. We do believe that the news of the clarifications the IRS issued in late December is now reaching CPA’s, and we want to do all we can to communicate to them of the challenge they posed for programs like ours. We are working with legislative leadership to make adjustments to our law to respond to those IRS changes and hope for an opportunity to bring many of you to the State House to talk to the legislators about the difference Exceptional SC is making in the lives of your children.      
Please send comments to the IRS regarding your situation. You will only have 5,000 characters to use, so you must be brief. I have included talking points for you to use which are almost 900 characters. 
You definitely won’t have room to explain everything that you’d love to explain, just keep it brief and to the point so that they hear from SC parents! We do like the adjustments they made this week and are hopeful that those changes will serve to “fix” the problems they created. Therefore, we don’t want to “blast” them but we do want them to hear from us!
Go to this link where you can click on the “Comment now” tab on the right of the box.
– Identify yourself as a parent or teacher of a child who receives the Exceptional SC scholarship and how long your child has been in the program along with a VERY BRIEF description of your child’s challenges.
– Add these points- feel free to put into your words or summarize: 
1. Changes to the tax law that were intended to reign in states that wanted to bypass tax reform have greatly impacted SC’s program. 
2. This program was already doing what tax reform intended and that was re-directing tax dollars into a program for exceptional needs children that public schools could not accommodate.
3. Our program is only $12 million and DOESN’T use tax money and is not guaranteed, so our program has to raise the money each year.
4. The confusion created by the ruling has frozen financial advisors and accountants who have  advised their clients that they should not give to our program any longer. 
5. Your ruling in December on business deductions was very helpful and we appreciate you clarifying that and earnestly desire that you finalize that ruling quickly so that pass through entity businesses CAN take the federal deduction for donations to our program.  
Important Contact Information to Remember
As always please do not hesitate to contact the following with any specific questions or concern: 

Application or Donation Questions
803-602-4398 | Email  

Technical Application Questions (TADS)
800-477-8237 | Email  

Tax Credit Questions (SCDOR)
803-898-5706 | Email 
 
Chad Connelly
Executive Director