Trump Promises Homeschoolers $10,000 Tax Free Per Child, A Trojan Horse
By Carole Hornsby Haynes November 16, 2024
President-elect Trump has vowed to extend 529 plans to homeschoolers along with full access to benefits available to non-homeschooled student, including “participating in athletic programs, clubs, after school activities, educational trips, and more.” These benefits already are available to most homeschoolers, though many decline because there is such a large variety of enrichment opportunities available to homeschooling parents.
Named after Section 529 in the IRS code, the plans were created by Congress in the 1990s for college savings. Under the tax cuts in Trump’s first term, plan benefits up to $10,000 tax free each year were extended to parents for K-12 school tuition. Homeschoolers were not allowed to use the federal education savings plans. Now Trump wants to allow homeschool parents to have the same benefits. “To every homeschool family, I will be your champion,” he promised.
Parents beware! Any benefit from the government is never free. With 529 plans come government oversight. No federal funds are deposited into 529 accounts, only after-tax funds of individuals with tax-deferred growth that is tax-free when used for qualified education expenses. Yet, people are told how they can spend their own money. The savings accounts are subject to very strict rules about when and how and where the withdrawals can be used if they are to be tax free. For college savings accounts, the only “acceptable” expenses are those textbooks and supplies that are on the university’s “approved” list. Even eligible educational institutions are determined by the government. This is anathema to parents who are fleeing public education because of government intervention and bureaucracy.
Since there are no nationwide standards or statewide curricula and textbooks specifically for private and homeschools, how is the IRS going to determine what will be qualified for the “tax benefit?” Will the IRS ask each family for a list of the curricula and textbooks being used? Will the politicized IRS get involved in deciding what is and what is not appropriate? Will the IRS ask for an audited list of your education expenses? Will the U.S. Department of Education get involved as well?
It’s inevitable that the federal government and IRS will develop 529 regulations for "acceptable" textbooks or curricula for K-12 students. Through monetary enticements, the federal camel already has been poking its nose into the tent of private and religious schools. If politicians have their way, they are going to extend that enticement to homeschool parents as well.
Although 529 savings plans are voluntary, they open the door for future federal regulations. As the history of American education shows us, once the federal camel is allowed inside the education tent, it will gradually take up residence and shove parents and states aside as federal control is assumed through any means, even if unlawful.
Through decades of unconstitutional legislation, the federal government has usurped the Tenth Amendment right of states, local communities, and parents over education. With 529 savings plans extended to homeschoolers, the rights of parents to educate their children as they wish will be trampled even further because the government sees homeschools as its prize plum to conquer.
The American people have spoken. We are fed up with government control; now is the time to kick the federal government totally out of education and return to state and local control as the Constitution’s Tenth Amendment intended. Rather than provide government help to homeschoolers, Trump must move full speed ahead with his pledge to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.