For years, wildfire survivors have asked the federal government to stop taxing settlement money from disastrous wildfires like the Camp and Dixie fires.
A bill that would do just that is getting bipartisan support, but recent turmoil in Congress has delayed it.
Jennifer Gray Thompson is the Founder and CEO of After The Fire USA, a policy advocacy group for wildfire survivors.
She supports H.R. 4970, a bill that would stop the federal government from taxing settlements in any federally declared wildfire for these past few years.
“If you are the victim of a corporate-caused disaster and you get a settlement, it doesn't make any sense at all for very vulnerable people who've already lost everything or suffered greatly, then to lose even more,” Thompson said.
The bill was proposed in part to help survivors of the 2018 Camp Fire.
Some of those survivors say they paid 20% to 30% of their settlement payment in taxes. That’s before attorneys take up to a third of the money.
Casey Taylor is a Camp Fire survivor and community leader in Paradise.
She flew to Washington, D.C. last month to advocate for the bill.
“Every representative that we went to go talk to and their staff was just like, ‘yes, of course, we should not be paying federal taxes,’” Taylor said.
Despite bipartisan support for the bill in both houses, it’s been caught up in squabbles that nearly shut down the government last month.
And, when House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted yesterday, a long-awaited committee hearing was rescheduled.
“It's wrapped up in so much political baloney that it's hurting the American people and also fire survivors,” Taylor said.
For many in the North State, tax filing day was extended to Oct. 16.
If the bill doesn’t pass by then, which some still hope it will, many survivors will go another year paying federal taxes on money they need to rebuild.
