SUMMARY:  LC 34 4770   The Building Education Success Together (BEST) Act.  Establishes an exemption from state and corporate income taxes for individual and corporate donors to student scholarship organizations:

• a corporate donor to this program shall be allowed a credit against the corporate income tax in an amount up to $2.5 million per year
• individual donors to this program shall be allowed an income tax credit of up to $1000 ($2000 if filing jointly)
• contributors may not designate the donation to be used by a particular individual or school
• unused tax credits during one year may be allowed against the succeeding five years' tax liability
• state wide maximum credits shall not exceed $25 million per tax year
• tax credits shall be allowed on a first come, first served basis
• information or reports provided by scholarship organizations to the Department of Revenue shall be confidential

To be eligible for a BEST scholarship, the student must:

• be a Georgia resident
• qualify for a free or reduced lunch
• have attended for at least six weeks a Georgia secondary or primary school unless
  • the student attends a failing school as determined by the Office of Student Achievement
  • the student is the subject of school based physical violence or student related verbal abuse threatening physical harm
  • the student was enrolled in a home study program for at least one year
  • the student was already served by an existing student scholarship organization

To qualify for participation in the BEST program, the school must:

• annually administer to BEST students nationally norm referenced or the state tests that measure learning gains
• provide parents of BEST students and the Office of Student Achievement results of these tests annually 
• provide graduation rates of BEST students to the Office of Student Achievement
• be accredited by a state-recognized accrediting agency
• be located in Georgia, adhere to federal civil rights requirements and state requirements for private schools

BEST scholarships shall be portable to any qualified school.

Scholarship organizations shall annually submit to the Department of Education BEST student information that would allow the aggregation of data by grade level, gender, family income level, and race. 

EFFECTIVE DATE:  Taxable years beginning January 1, 2017 if approved by the General Assembly and Governor.