In my last post, I mentioned at the end that you should ask your school district liaison about reimbursement forms (Aids to Non-Public Schools). Each district has their own, so unless you live in my school district, I don't have an easy link to share with you. I simply email my district person each summer for the forms for that upcoming school year, and she emails them on over. Reimbursement will vary from district to district (and even if you get reimbursement can vary from state to state, but it's completely worth looking into). For us, in Minnesota, in our district, we get about $80 per year per kid in full day kindergarten through 12th grade. (Half day kindergarten gets half the amount.)
What does reimbursement cover? Curriculum and standardized testing (in Minnesota, other states may do it differently, so for more specific information on your state, I would recommend checking with your school district). At this point, you may not know what curriculum you will be using, but it will not cover "religious" curriculum. I'm not talking about Sunday School-type stuff, I'm talking about anything that may have a religious slant to it. (I will try to do another post about curriculum choices that may explain this more if you're just beginning to look into homeschooling.) From other homeschoolers I've talked to, most of us use this money to help cover the standardized testing (that I mentioned in my first post about filling out the reporting form). Many also use it on "consumables," such as workbooks. Since the school district is "purchasing" the curriculum for you, they are technically the "owners" of these books. Things that are "consumables" aren't things that they are ever going to want back. (Though, I've never heard of a school district asking a homeschooling family for "their" books back, so really don't fret over this too much.) Reimbursement does NOT cover supplies such as printer paper, pencils, art supplies, or the like. Something to keep in the back of your mind, is that for reimbursement, you will need receipts for what you have purchased to submit to your district. You will want to find some organizational system that works best for you. For me, I purchase pretty much everything on-line and I submit my receipts via email, so I have a file folder on my computer where I save a copy of my receipts for easy quick access. I have a folder for each school year with the amount we will be getting that year in the title, so I don't have to look that up again. Then when I save my receipts to that folder, I name it with what it is along with the amount, so I can easily add up my receipts to the total (on the name of the folder), and pick which receipts I'm sending in.
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| Receipt Organization (Click for a larger view) |
Once you've got the reimbursement figured out, you can look into getting a tax exempt status. In some other states from what I understand, you don't have to worry about paying sales tax on your curriculum purchases anyway, such as Florida and California. In other states, I guess you're just out of luck. Heppner's Legacy Homeschool Resources has an excellent walk-through for Minnesotans to apply with links to all the forms you will need, and where to send them. With the tax exempt status, you not only don't have to pay sales tax on the curriculum you purchase, but also on school supplies that are used exclusively for homeschooling. (So you can't buy a computer for the family that will be used for things not related to homeschooling.) Keep in mind that if you live in a different state, the laws may vary on this if you have a tax exempt status for homeschoolers, so make sure you check your own state's laws. If you do get a tax exempt status, and you're purchasing some of your curriculum from Amazon or other online stores that you frequently use for other purchases, you will want to be careful when ordering other things. Sometimes your tax exemption will apply itself to things you're not purchasing for homeschooling. With Amazon, you can easily remove the exemption with the click of a button. I'm assuming other online stores are also as simple, but it's the only one I've used.
I think the next logical step is figuring out your curriculum, so unless I see other questions arise, that will likely be what my next post is about.
UPDATE:
Here are the links to the other posts in this series.
Part 1: Reporting to Your School District and Assessments
Part 3: Homeschooling Styles and Curriculum
Part 4: Our Curriculum Choices
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