Louisiana Opts Into the Federal §25F Scholarship Tax Credit, and the Senator Who Co-Wrote It Is From Louisiana

On December 17, 2025, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry (R) announced that Louisiana would participate in the federal K-12 scholarship tax credit program created under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the §25F credit that lets taxpayers claim up to $1,700 for donations to qualified scholarship granting organizations (SGOs). The IRS confirmed the decision on June 8, 2026 in IR-2026-76, which lists Louisiana among the 27 states that have signed up ahead of the program's January 1, 2027 launch. The hometown angle is hard to miss: the very next day, December 18, 2025, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a lead Senate author of the provision, applauded his home state's decision with the line, “Thank you, Governor Landry for adding Louisiana to the list.” Cassidy co-led the Senate version of the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) with Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) before it was folded into the §25F credit, so Louisiana joining the program it helped originate carries a particular symmetry.

The federal mechanics are uniform across every participating state. Individual taxpayers who donate to a certified SGO receive a non-refundable federal tax credit equal to their contribution, capped at $1,700 per taxpayer per year, applied dollar for dollar against their federal tax bill rather than as a deduction. The scholarships those SGOs fund flow to K-12 families with household income up to 300% of area median gross income, a threshold that reaches well into the middle class in most Louisiana metros. States join formally through the IRS advance election, as documented in Form 15714, and by submitting a list of approved SGOs to Treasury. The $1,700 cap is fixed in statute, a point we unpack in our breakdown of why the figure is $1,700, not $3,400.

Louisiana arrives at §25F with infrastructure already in place. The state runs the Tuition Donation Credit Program, an SGO-style framework administered with four active School Tuition Organizations: ACE Scholarships, Arete Scholars, Aspiring Scholars, and Son of a Saint. That experience with donor receipts, eligibility checks, and scholarship disbursement positions Louisiana to plug into the federal channel quickly. One caveat for operators and families: the state program and the federal credit are not identical. Louisiana's Tuition Donation Credit Program caps eligibility at 250% of the federal poverty line, while §25F uses the more generous 300%-of-area-median-income standard, so the two run on different income rules even where the same organizations administer both. Operators standing up a federal-facing SGO can review how the credit works in our explainers and see the broader national field in the SGO directory; running a compliant §25F program (donor receipts, eligibility verification, disbursement, Treasury reporting) is exactly what software built for the credit is designed to handle.

For Louisiana donors, the credit is among the most favorable incentives on the books, because a dollar-for-dollar credit returns the full contribution rather than a fraction of it. For the state's School Tuition Organizations, the question is whether they extend their existing operations into the federal program or whether new entrants compete for the same donor relationships and families. Louisiana's decision places it alongside early movers such as Virginia, Colorado, and Florida, all of which committed ahead of the launch, and on the same confirmed roster captured in the IRS list of 27 states that have made the advance election.

The work ahead is operational, not political. The credit does not become usable until January 1, 2027, and between now and then Louisiana must certify the SGOs that will deliver federally backed scholarships and submit that list to Treasury, all while Treasury itself finalizes the proposed regulations that will govern the program nationwide. The pace of that buildout, not the opt-in announcement, will determine when Louisiana families can actually claim scholarships and when donors can begin contributing. We track Louisiana's status and participating organizations on the Louisiana state page and follow the national rollout on the participation map.