Press Releases

Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Richard E. Neal (D-MA) and Ways and Means Tax Subcommittee Ranking Member Mike Thompson (D-CA) marked crossing a key threshold of 218 signatories on a bipartisan discharge petition to force action on legislation that would provide tax relief in the wake of recent disasters and called on Speaker Johnson to schedule a vote on the measure. The legislation previously passed out of the Ways and Means Committee and was included in Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act that is currently stalled in the Senate.

“While the most extreme Members of the Republican Conference are on a field trip to stump outside the former President’s court room, Ways and Means Democrats helped deliver the first successful discharge petition in nearly ten years. With an absolute majority of Members in agreement that communities devastated by recent natural disasters need our assistance in rebuilding, the time for action is now,” said Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Neal. “Disasters aren’t political, and I thank Congressman Greg Steube and Tax Subcommittee Ranking Member Mike Thompson for their unwavering commitment to delivering much-needed tax relief to their constituents. It’s well past time for Speaker Johnson and the most unproductive House Majority in over a century to put aside the partisan games and do the right thing for small businesses and working families who have faced personal and financial loss from wildfires, train derailments, and other natural disasters.”

“Fire survivors have been through enough in the wake of losing their homes and livelihoods to wildfires. It’s wrong to tax them on the settlement money meant to help them rebuild their lives,” said Tax Subcommittee Ranking Member Thompson. “Today’s historic discharge petition reaffirms the House’s strong, bipartisan support for survivors and sends a clear message to Senate Republicans: It’s time to work with us to pass much-needed relief for disaster victims.” 

The bill excludes from taxpayer gross income, for income tax purposes, any amount received by an individual taxpayer as compensation for expenses or losses incurred due to a qualified wildfire disaster (a disaster declared after 2014 as a result of a forest or range fire). It also excludes relief payments for losses resulting from the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment on February 3, 2023 and designates Hurricane Ian, among other federally declared disasters, as a qualified disaster for the purposes of determining the tax treatment of certain disaster-related personal casualty losses.

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