May our school ask members of our Board of Directors to write a letter to our House and Senate members to oppose a state legislative bill that would end our Educational Improvement Tax Credit law? The EITC program authorizes state tax credits for gifts to certain recognized private and parochial schools like ours. We might have to go out of business if we couldn’t get these gifts because donors couldn’t reduce their state taxes by giving to us. —By email.
Federal law prohibits public charities like your school from engaging in lobbying if such lobbying constitutes a “substantial” portion of its activities. Since your school carries on a full educational program, there is no way a letter or two from each of your volunteer directors on a single bill before the legislature would constitute a “substantial” activity of the school. If the stakes are as high as you fear, the legislators should be aware of the potential consequences when considering whether or not to support the bill. They probably understand the basic divide on tax credits for private schools, but putting a face on your side of the issue can’t hurt.
There is no precise definition of how much lobbying activity is “too much,” but federal case law has generally not questioned such activity when it has been less than 10% of the total activity of the organization for the year in question. Even if you bussed every student, teacher, administrator, director and parent to the state capital for a whole day of lobbying, it would be less than 0.6% of your 180-day school year. With as much latitude as you have before there could be a federal tax issue, you might want to urge the parents to write as well. They have their kids in your school for a reason.
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