Q: What is the Midwestern Disaster Tax Relief Bill?
A: I’ve been working to get Congress to act on a tax relief package for flood and tornado victims throughout the Midwest and especially in
Iowa . The bipartisan bill I put together would provide $3.96 billion in federal tax relief for individuals, families and businesses affected by the disaster. Among other things, the bill would let disaster victims withdraw money from retirement plans without tax penalties, suspend limits on tax incentives for charitable contributions, create tax-exempt bond authority to help rebuild infrastructure and fully deduct casualty losses due to natural disaster. It would also allow additional depreciation to lower tax payments or possibly generate a tax refund for local Iowa businesses, and it would increase the amounts allowed for expensing property, thereby lowering taxes for small businesses trying to rebuild. The Midwestern Disaster Tax Relief Bill is modeled after tax legislation that Congress passed to help victims of hurricane Katrina, Rita and Wilma in 2005, and the tornado in Kiowa County , Kansas in 2007. This kind of tax relief for disasters has proven to be very helpful to disaster recovery efforts. Putting the policies in place quickly has contributed to their success. In 2005, the President was able to sign a major individual tax relief package into law within three weeks of the Katrina disaster. Three months later, Congress followed up with an infrastructure and business tax relief package. This year, there seems to be a huge misconception in Washington that the destruction in Iowa doesn’t compare to the other disasters that have received federal tax relief packages. I’m sounding the alarm in Congress about this disaster. I’m in Iowa every weekend and happy to show anyone around in Congress that is buying into that fallacy.
Q: What is taking longer to pass than legislation for Katrina and other disasters?
A: The Majority Leader of the Senate has employed a strategy to slow-walk this bill and make it a political football. I tried to get unanimous consent from senators to have this bill passed before the Congressional recess that started August 1, and was denied. The situation is frustrating and unfair because this bill does not ask for anything more than the same consideration that was given to the victims of other major disasters. Just because the
Iowa storm hasn’t been covered on national television for weeks on end, doesn’t mean that the amount of hurt caused by the disaster isn’t the same. I won’t give up. People are working day and night to put their lives and their communities back together. Iowans are determined to rebuild and Congress needs to do the right thing and show its commitment to help by treating the Midwest the same as other disasters have been treated.