Form 15714 and the EFTC: A State’s First Step Toward Opting In

Most of the attention on the Education Freedom Tax Credit has gone to governors and legislatures. But a state’s participation ultimately runs through paperwork filed with the IRS, and last December the agency published a form that lets states raise their hand before they finish the harder work behind the scenes.

A Form Before the Program

For most of 2025, states that wanted to join the new Education Freedom Tax Credit (EFTC) faced a problem: there was no place to sign.

That changed on December 12, 2025. The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service issued news release IR-2025-121, published Revenue Procedure 2026-6 and released Form 15714.

Here is the short answer to what the form does. Form 15714 lets a state tell the federal government it intends to participate in the credit for calendar year 2027 before it finishes assembling and submitting its official list of approved scholarship organizations. It does not change who qualifies for the credit or who qualifies for a scholarship.

What the Election Actually Is

Some background helps, because the words “election” and “covered State” are not everyday English.

The EFTC, written into law as Section 25F of the tax code, works through nonprofits that award scholarships to K-12 students. The formal term for those nonprofits is a Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO).

Under the statute, two things have to line up. A donation earns the federal credit only if it goes to an SGO in a state that has been certified, and a child can receive one of those scholarships only if the child lives in a participating state, which the statute calls a “covered State.”

An “election” here is not a ballot. It is a formal filing a state makes with the federal government, the same way a business elects a tax treatment. Revenue Procedure 2026-6, published in Internal Revenue Bulletin 2026-02, sets what the IRS describes as the exclusive procedure for making it.

Why the Sequence Was the Problem

Consider what a state has to do before it can hand Treasury a finished list of SGOs.

It has to decide which organizations qualify. It has to build or adapt a review process, verify that applicants meet federal requirements and, in many states, write rules that did not exist a year ago. That work takes months.

Meanwhile, donors and scholarship organizations were left guessing. An SGO deciding whether to hire staff, and a family deciding whether to apply for aid, both need to know whether their state will be in the program at all.

The advance election separates the announcement from the administration. A state can confirm its intent first and complete the detailed certification work afterward.

The Filing Is Optional, and That Matters

Nothing requires a state to use the new form.

Under the procedure, a state may file Form 15714 on or after January 1, 2026 and before its final SGO-list deadline, or it may skip the advance election entirely and submit the SGO list directly when it is ready.

That distinction is worth holding onto, because it means the absence of an advance election does not tell you a state has declined. It may simply be taking the direct route.

The IRS has said additional deadlines and procedures for 2028 and later years will come in future guidance. As of publication, those rules have not been issued.

How This Fits the Larger Rulemaking Still Underway

Form 15714 answers a narrow question. Bigger ones remain open.

The form complements a broader rulemaking process the IRS opened through Notice 2025-70, which gathers public comment on state certification, SGO requirements, donor substantiation and household-income verification. Substantiation is the record a donor keeps to support a claimed credit.

So the picture as of now looks like this. The statute is law. One procedural step has final guidance. The rules governing how donors document gifts and how SGOs verify family income are still in progress.

That is not a delay so much as a normal order of operations. New credits are built in pieces, and the pieces arrive in the order the agency can finish them.

Three Different Doors Into the Same Program

A federal form does not decide whether a state participates. State officials do, and they have been reaching that decision in different ways.

States have used gubernatorial certifications, legislation and, in Kentucky, Kansas and North Carolina, legislative overrides of a governor’s veto. Each path ends at the same place: a filing with the federal government.

Supporters of the program have argued that participation keeps federal dollars supporting local students. Governors who declined have raised concerns about oversight and the effect on public school funding. What the advance election changes is not the argument. It changes when the outcome becomes visible.

You can read more about the mechanics in our explainer on how states opt in.

What This Means If You Plan to Give or Apply

For a taxpayer, the practical takeaway is about timing and certainty, not eligibility.

The mechanics of the EFTC are fixed. A donor first makes a charitable contribution to a qualified SGO. Later, at filing, an eligible taxpayer may claim a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit of up to $1,700. The credit is not an immediate offset, and it is not a refund of taxes already paid.

The program’s start date has not moved. Qualified contributions are tied to the January 1, 2027 launch, so no donation window is open now.

What an advance election gives you, if your state files one, is earlier confidence that donations made in 2027 to an SGO in your state can count, and that students in your state can be considered for those scholarships. For families, it means a scholarship application season is likely coming, though award decisions rest with each SGO under the rules in effect at the time. Our donor timeline walks through the full sequence from gift to filing.

What to Watch Next

Treasury’s final regulations, following the comment process under Notice 2025-70, change what donors must document. And how quickly states move from an advance election to a completed SGO list, because the credit depends on that list, not on the intent to file one.

The AFC Scholarship Fund is preparing to serve donors and families in participating states as the program comes online. Here’s the latest on where your state stands and what the next steps look like.