The Beth Medrash Govoha Department of Government Affairs has provided the following update on the nationwide effort to save the Qualified Tuition Benefit that is so crucial to Mechanchim and which has a cascade effect on mosdos and all parents:
This evening, multiple sources are reporting that the House elimination of the Sec. 117(d) Qualified Tuition Reduction was not included in the GOP Tax Reform Deal. This benefit for mechanchim and school employees has been protected in the final deal.
Eliminating Sec. 117(d) would have caused the loss to Rebbeim, educators, teachers and their families of hundreds of millions of dollars each year, financially devastating the North American Yeshiva system. This threat has now receded and our network of activists are staying on top of this to see it over the finish line.
We daven for the continued financial viability of our mosdos, and of every tuition paying parent.
This update is given with the caution that the actual bill language has not been released yet, and nothing should be considered final until the bill comes to the House and Senate floor for a vote next week. In the meantime, the reports that QTR is solid are very encouraging.
On another note regarding the tax bill, Agudath Israel made a strong effort to garner grass-roots expressions of support for QTR and for a new provision introduced by Senator Cruz that would have allowed parents to use 529 accounts for K-12 tuition. It is not yet known whether that 529 provision has been included in the final deal. More updates to follow as additional details emerge.
In a further encouraging development, other provisions that would have been unfavorable to mosdos have also been removed. In particular, a House provision to end the use of tax-exempt bonds by nonprofit organizations was removed. Had this succeeded, it could have significantly increased costs for mosdos embarking on capital projects, but Baruch Hashem this too did not survive in the final deal.
Hope the tax plan is good for me!
Good job agudah.
Now for next step, We should reach out to Senators Rubio and Lee, and encourage them to hold firm and insist that the child tax credit becomes refundable.
Rubio has a tendency to say he strongly believes in helping families, but when push comes to shove, he is afraid to threaten his party that he will vote against them, and ends up voting with whatever the plan is.
Therefore his threats are not taken seriously, unlike other Senators like Susan Collins who threaten and get what they want.
So we need to call Senators Rubio and Lee, to encourage them and ask them to hold firm on the child tax credit.
Thank you to the so many individuals working on our behalf. I will never even know who you are and how much work you put into this!
Everyone Pls call Congressman Chris Smith and tell him to support amendment 529!