House Passes Tax Relief For Volunteer Firefighters and EMS Personnel
Yesterday, the United
States House of Representatives passed the Heroes
Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax (HEART) Act, which
excludes from taxable income all property tax benefits
and up to $360 per year of any other benefit paid to
volunteer firefighters and EMS personnel by state and local units of government.
According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, passage of
the HEART Act (H.R. 3997) will result in $994 million in
tax savings for volunteer firefighters and
EMS personnel over the next 10 years.
Volunteer firefighters
save American taxpayers more than $37.2 billion every
year. Unfortunately, statistics show that the number of
volunteer firefighters in the country have decreased
over the last 20 years even as the average age of
volunteer firefighters has gone up. Many communities
have discovered that providing benefits to their
volunteer firefighters and
EMS personnel has a positive impact on
retention and recruitment. Taxation of these benefits by
the federal government reduces their value as an
incentive to the volunteer and creates a significant
administrative burden on small municipalities and
townships.
On October 17, National
Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) Connecticut State Director
John McAuliffe testified before the House Ways and Means Committee about the
need to prohibit the federal taxation of benefits for
volunteer firefighters and
EMS personnel. Since then, the NVFC worked
closely with other organizations and members of the Ways
and Means Committee to ensure that language providing
tax relief to volunteer firefighters and
EMS personnel was included in the HEART Act,
which also includes various provisions regarding
taxation of military income. On November 5, the NVFC,
along with three other national organizations, sent
a letter to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the
Committee expressing support for passage of the HEART
Act.
H.R. 3997 now goes to the
Senate, where it will be considered by the Committee on
Finance. The NVFC
urges its members to contact their Senators and ask that
they support passage of the HEART Act.
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