AB 2944: Personal income taxes: voluntary contributions: Schools Not Prisons Voluntary Tax Contribution Fund.

Existing law authorizes an individual to contribute amounts in excess of his or her personal income tax liability for the support of specified funds. Under existing law, there are general administrative provisions applicable to these voluntary contributions, which, among other things, provide for the disbursement of contributions following the repeal of the funds provisions and require undesignated funds to be transferred to the General Fund.

Existing law requires any new or extended voluntary contribution to include the words voluntary tax contribution in the name of the fund, to require the administering agency to include specified information about the fund on its Internet Web site, to continuously appropriate from the fund the contributions made to the administering agency, to set a minimum contribution amount for the continuation of any voluntary tax contribution on the tax return form, and to include a generally applicable repeal date for a voluntary tax contribution.

This bill would allow an individual to designate on his or her tax return that a specified amount in excess of his or her personal income tax liability be transferred to the Schools Not Prisons California Voluntary Tax Contribution Fund, which would be created by this bill. The bill would conform with those aforementioned administrative requirements by continuously appropriating those funds to the Franchise Tax Board, the Controller, and the State Department of Education for administrative costs and to the State Department of Education for the distribution of grants to nonprofit public charities in California to fund academic and career readiness programs that seek to break the school-to-prison pipeline, as specified. The bill would also conform by requiring the State Department of Education to comply with certain Internet Web site reporting requirements and by repealing the provisions as of December 1 of the year that the minimum contribution amount of $250,000 is not met or by the specified repeal date. By continuously appropriating these funds, the bill would make an appropriation.