HB 476 Utah House · 2025 General Session

Tax Return Donation Amendments

HB 476 allows Utah taxpayers to voluntarily contribute to a new School Meals Debt Relief Fund when filing their state income tax returns. The fund will be distributed to local schools based on each school’s share of statewide unpaid student meal debt, helping schools pay off outstanding balances owed by families. Local education agencies must report debt data annually to the State Board of Education, which verifies the data and calculates distributions. Funds must be used exclusively to reduce student meal debt, with unused funds redistributed within 60 days. The bill takes effect retroactively from January 1, 2025.
Bill status passed 3 of 4 stages cleared
Introduction
Feb 2025
Committee Review
Mar 2025
Senate Passage
Feb 2025
Governor
Introduced Feb 11, 2025 Last action Mar 8, 2025
Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison

What changed between versions

Introduced Substitute #1 · 6 edits
MODERATE
This bill creates a School Meals Debt Relief Fund to help local education agencies pay off unpaid student meal debts. It allows both individual and corporate taxpayers to contribute to the fund through their tax returns, establishes reporting requirements for debt data, and sets up a distribution process based on each agency's proportion of total statewide debt. The bill also includes provisions for removing certain tax contribution designations if they generate insufficient revenue over three consecutive years.
Scope change
The bill expands the scope of tax contributions by adding corporate taxpayers to the list of eligible contributors (previously only individual contributions were mentioned in the original version), and clarifies the fund's administration and distribution mechanisms.
FISCAL

Added corporate taxpayer contributions to the School Meals Debt Relief Fund, allowing corporations to designate contributions on their income tax returns in addition to individual taxpayers.

REQUIREMENT

Established specific reporting requirements for local education agencies, including total outstanding debt, number of students with debt, verification of collection efforts, and other information deemed necessary by the state board.

Added requirements for LEAs to maintain records for five years and return unused funds to the state board within 60 days if not applied to student meal debts.

TIMELINE

Set specific deadlines for fund distribution (by September 1) and fund transfer from the commission to the state board (by August 15).

ENFORCEMENT

Created a mechanism to remove tax contribution designations if contributions generate less than $30,000 per year for three consecutive years, with specific reporting and publication requirements.

TECHNICAL

Changed the Senate Sponsor name from 'LONG TITLE' to 'Luz Escamilla' and updated formatting throughout the document.

Floor votes

How they voted

This bill passed the Senate by voice vote (no roll call recorded).
Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions
25
Key actions
4
Committee
5
Mar 3, 2025
Upper · Passed
Senate/ committee report favorable
upper
Mar 3, 2025
Upper · Passed
Senate Comm - Favorable Recommendation
upper
Feb 27, 2025
Committee
Senate/ to standing committee
upper
Feb 27, 2025
Introduced
Senate/ 1st reading (Introduced)
upper
Feb 26, 2025
Upper · Passed
House/ passed 3rd reading
upper
Feb 20, 2025
Lower · Passed
House Comm - Favorable Recommendation
lower
Feb 18, 2025
Committee
House/ to standing committee
lower
Feb 11, 2025
Introduced
House/ 1st reading (Introduced)
lower
1 primary · 1 co-sponsor

Sponsors