The Arizona Military Family Relief Fund program helps military families.  It gives a dollar-for-dollar credit on your tax return.  But, if you wait any longer to make a donation, you may not be eligible for that direct tax credit.

Arizona law allows up to 400 dollars in tax credit contribution to the Arizona Military Relief Fund.  It’s an assistance program for Arizona service members, active or retired, who served after September 11, 2001 and are going through a financial crisis.  But, the organization has a one million dollar contribution threshold, and once it reaches that cap donations are returned.  Travis Schulte oversees the Arizona Military Relief Fund and says the program is becoming so well known that if tax payers wait too long to contribute the agency will return it because it will not filers the credit. "As of November of last year we were at 230 thousand dollars, this year we’re at 386-thousand dollars. So we’re running a pace of about 50-percent higher from last year," said Schulte. 

Since the fund started helping families in 2008, 154 families received assistance, and in many cases more than once.   Organizers encourage anyone who knows of a military family in financial hardship to contact the Arizona Military Family Relief Fund.

For more information visit the Arizona Department of Veterans' Services: http://dvs.az.gov/benefits/relief_fund.aspx#Donation_Info