Homeschoolers vary pretty widely on opinions over the topic of whether or not homeschoolers should receive a tax exemption (since their children don’t go to public schools) or tax deduction (for materials costs). Some fear a tax exemption could lead to tighter regulation of what constitutes legal and acceptable homeschooling. Some feel it’s necessary to offset the additional incurred costs of homeschooling. I can see the concerns on both sides of the aisle.
What if, instead of homeschooling affording you an exemption or deduction, you could set up a flexible education spending account at the beginning of each year, just like you can currently do with medical expenses? The money you put in would be pre-tax, anyone with a school-aged child could set one up (homeschooling or not), and certain items would be considered “educational,” just like they currently are for Georgia’s tax-exempt weekends. You’d either make your purchases through pre-approved vendors/publishers of educational materials (those vendors or publishers could apply to be on your FESA’s approved vendors list just like pharmacies/med. supply vendors do now) or you would send in your receipts afterwards.
Books/curricula, educational software, and basic school supplies could be included. It could be a good way to help offset the cost without creating a lot of additional regulation for homeschoolers.
Thoughts?
I like the idea of a flexible spending account. It would have to have a cap (like the healthcare and childcare ones do), or it could easily be abused. I don’t homeschool, but we do live an educational lifestyle.
Right, I figure a cap would have to be part of it. Kash and I are talking about writing something up and sending it to our rather worthless congressmen.
I think it’s a great idea…especially if we decide to venture down the homeschooling road.
I know it could help out certain families I know that homeschool and don’t have steady incomes. I’ve also wondered about how to incorporate a food bonus to homeschoolers, which would be the equivalent to the free or reduced meals in public school. Because those with school aged children that qualify for food stamps automatically get the free or reduced bfast & lunches, and the state assumes they are eating those at school and therefore the amount you get for those kids is less than preschool aged kids & adults!
If you have a few kids the difference in feeding them all 3 meals 5 days a wk and feeding them 1 meal 5 days a wk is huge!
I didn’t realize they reduced the amount received in food stamps for school age children. I wonder if you can present your Declaration of Intent and have that changed?
eh, i have some thoughts, probably not good ones.
first of all, the health savings accounts that i’m familiar with are auto-deducted from paycheck, you cant spend it until you’ve put it in, and if you dont use it by the end of the year, you lose the money. While it could be good to contribute all year and spend it all in september, you still have to make sure to spend some of it at december so you arent losing money. And i suspect that a lot of homeschoolers who want the gov’ts hands off their kids would be less than comfortable putting their money in an account controlled by the gov’t . . . so it could be embarressing to fight for something that many home schoolers wont use.
second, one issue I’ve seen mentioned is the whole ‘approved items’ thing … what i’ve seen from tax-free weekends is pretty broad ‘approved’ items. But i worry that, for home schooling, it might be harder to identify. Dont stores have to sign up to participate in the program? What about those of us who buy items from small vendors, or odd places – like random books from amazon. This could be really hard to administer, and also really hard to make everyone feel like its ‘fair’.
next, have you noticed that school budgets and government budgets are being slashed left and right? have you heard that the economy is expected to take years to get back on track? Where on earth would the money for this come from – more taxes?
Finally, I once saw someone write (somewhere) that home school is, by definition, payed for by the parents. Anything else is public school, and has strings attached. Parents who chose to spend their children to private schools dont get tax breaks. I think of home schooling as being a personal private school. It costs money . . . although you can go pretty cheap with library books and free internet resources. I think expecting help paying for something because you think you need it is entitlement thinking.
Well, i do think the food stamps issue makes sense, tho, but thats not what you’re talking about, is it.
but i think overall, for me, if you want the government to pay for your school . . . you have to take the school the government is paying for. public school.
You’re confused about how FSAs work. You can spend every cent of the amount you allot from your paycheck from the first day of the year. You don’t have to wait until you pay it in. If you allot, say, $2500 to be pulled from paychecks throughout the year, you can use all $2500 on January second. The difference will be made up as you continue to pay into the FSA.
FSAs don’t work the way you stated. We inadvertently fleeced a former employer of dh’s when he left in June of one year. We had used all of our FSA money already, and put in less than half. You can access all that is scheduled to be contributed from 1 January.
Secondly, this isn’t about homeschooling. It’s about educational expenses, expenses that any family might have.
Finally… there’s no need to be snotty. I don’t think there’s anyone in the United States who is unaware of economic issues. Not to mention, there’s no way something of this scale would be put in place immediately or, probably, even within two or three years.
She seems to go out of her way to be snotty. For someone who criticizes me for being “overwhelmingly negative,” she certainly doesn’t have a lot of positivity to bring to any given discourse.
My question, in the midst of the snotty, is about ‘where is the money going to come from.’ I have NO idea how flexible spending accounts work, so I’m genuinely confused. Isn’t the money coming from you? Your paycheck, being deducted as you go? Some of it might be fronted as a very short term loan, but wouldn’t those funds be available at the very least from the amount the government is NOT paying the local public school for educating your child? (Also, tuition vouchers for the private schools were a BIG thing in IL, not sure if it ever went anywhere, but yeah, parents sending their kids to private schools were looking for expenses reimbursement as well, so Ms Snotty can just STFU right there.)
Yes, the money does come from you. You determine what amount will be pulled, pre-tax, from your paycheck and put into the account. You can only use that predetermined amount in the year, but you can use it from day one — it is like a mini-loan that you pay back each paycheck, in a way. FSA companies aren’t “the government” anyway — it’s a privately funded account, so I’m not sure where she’s getting that whole “homeschoolers are anti-government thing.” Republicans and Libertarians, on the whole, love FSAs because they’re not government services.
Oh, so she’s being snotty and having no clue about the actual mechanics of what she’s trying to snark? Excellent.
I’ll snark with the best of ‘em, but at least when I have no effing clue, I’ll say so. ^_~
I was under the impression that the FSA would be managed by the fed, as they ‘control’ education anyhow (regulation-ally speaking, anyhow), but that they’re managed by independent companies makes a great deal of sense, and the mini-short-term-loan idea is reasonable as well. So, honestly? As long as there’s nobody coming in behind the legislation requiring people using this FSA to provide evidence of public/private school attendance or mandating a specific curriculum or whatever? I’d have to be solidly behind it. If I could break down into a “forced” savings plan a couple hundred dollars a year (for us, for now), I could actually have curriculum materials for Nathaniel by the time he’s ready for them. As it stands… Not likely to be such an ‘easy’ time.
I think she’s partially confusing HSAs and FSAs, though both have aspects that could be taken into account when developing an educational spending account. FSAs are “government regulated” in that there’s a cap on them, they’re subject to specific tax codes, and there are certain classes of items/care that are covered and that aren’t. There’s no management of how/when I spend my FSA money, on what type of materials/care as long as they are for specific health needs (not general health, like vitamins or herbal supplements), they don’t care what brands I use or what stores I go to (though some stores have deals w/ the FSAs that make using them really easy, no need to mail receipts), etc. No one cares if I’m spending the money on bandaids or codeine.
hope i didnt put a damper on the conversation!
This would take some figuring out, but, yes, i think it’s a great idea. In response to the above comments–I think HSAs can be set up in different ways. My husband is self-employed and we have one. We feed into it every month as much as we want, up to a limit. The money that you don’t use, does roll over–which is really nice. I actually find it pretty flexible as far as what you can use it for. I don’t need to just use it at a dr’s office–I can go to cvs and buy cough syrup or lotion for eczema. I can also use it to pay for things that aren’t covered by my insurance, such as midwifery care.
The HSA model might even be more applicable to homeschoolers than the FSA model, since HSAs are consumer driven and FSAs are meant to be supplemental (to an employer-provided health plan), though aspects from both would be good.
I think the ideal spending/savings plan for educational funding would:
1. Be available through private financial institutions, not through employers or the government
2. Have a contribution limit based on number of eligible school-aged children (perhaps a tiered system, such as a bracket for single child, then 2 children, then 3-4, then 5+, since materials can be reused for subsequent children).
3. Be pre-funded (like FSA medical plans) OR allow for roll-over if pay-as-you-go.
Ok I didn’t read all the comments on this post so nobody flog me! ok? I think parents homeschool for the most part whether they are doing full time or not. I know when I learned it would cost me $400 a month to send my son to a preschool to learn about a circle was also the day I began seriously homeschooling. I took the money I would have spent and purchased educational toys and scattered them throughout our house. The result was the smartest kid in kindergarten these were the words of his teacher. We are no full time homeschoolers and wow what a difference a few years make. It cost more and more the older they get I think. Ron Paul tried to make a tax deduction for all parents for the purpose of education. Since we are in upstate New York all I really want is to tell the local distict to take a flying leap with their IHIPS and quarterly reports. I feel that it bogs us down and waste valuable time. I also think we should be relying on other homeschoolers more. Sometimes I feel like some homeschool blogs are more about lets make a buck for me and less about helping others. The ones that are truely helping and supporting others we should parade them around on our shoulders like the heros they are! My personal goal is to make homeschooling easier for others in anyway that I can.
I hate it when I see both sides of an issue
I was thinking, however, that homeschoolers are not the only ones forking over money for school related stuff. My aunt spends a small fortune in stuff for her daughters school and she’s in public school. What if a Flex Ed Acct was offered to everyone? Parents, College Students, etc.
Our Flex Med account is pretty liberal in what we can claim. And I have until March 30th I think to finish turning in stuff for last year. After that I will lose it, but I’ve never lost much… I think this year I’m going to be short $20. I saved more in taxes then that.
On my soapbox regarding public school budgets…. I wish they’d invite some homeschoolers to come show them how to do it for less money! The waste going on in some schools is unbelievable!
Lisa
I agree completely. Making a Flex Ed (I like that) account available for everyone would make it more universally appealing.
I’ve been wondering about this lately myself, so I’m tickled to see someone else thinking the same thing. My previous employment actually did have a childcare FSA, and I believe my boss used it for her kids’ private school, though it’s entirely possible it was only used for the after-school care portion.
If it could be used for private school, could it be used for homeschool supplies?
I live in California, where one of the legal methods of homeschooling is to register as a private school. If it couldn’t directly be used for homeschooling supplies, could I charge myself tuition and use the FSA for that?
Could I use it to send my kid to an “after school” program a few days a week if I found one offering activities and enrichment programs I felt were worthwhile?
All of this is almost purely hypothetical, as I don’t expect I’ll ever work for that particular entity again, and they apparently no longer offer this as a benefit, anyways.