Source: United States Senator for New Jersey Bob Menendez
JERSEY CITY, N.J. – As the nation commemorates Veterans Day, U.S. Senators Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) announced they will introduce the Coast Guard Tax Fairness Act to grant combat-injured Coast Guard veterans improperly withheld taxes they are owed by the Department of Homeland Security.
The Combat-Injured Veterans Tax Fairness Act of 2016 allows improperly withheld taxes to be returned to combat-injured veterans of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. However, due to a technical error, combat-injured Coast Guard veterans were excluded. This bipartisan legislation fixes this error and ensures Coast Guard veterans that were injured in combat receive the same treatment.
“Members of our Coast Guard and their families deserve to be treated fairly by our tax system,” said Sen. Menendez. “Passing commonsense legislation that ensures our military members and their families are taken care of, during and after their time of service, shows our appreciation to our service members.”
“Members of the Coast Guard who are wounded protecting our country should be treated the same way as other service members,” said Dr. Cassidy. “This bill makes sure this happens.”
Representatives Filemon Vela (D-TX-34) and Don Bacon (R-NE-02) introduced a companion bill in the U.S. House of Representatives in June.
Sen. Menendez recently joined a group of his colleagues in introducing the bipartisan Save Our Servicemembers (S.O.S.) Act, which would work to improve Department of Defense suicide prevention efforts. The legislation – which comes shortly after an alarming report revealed a 15% increase in military suicides in 2020 – would direct the Pentagon to evaluate the effectiveness of their suicide prevention efforts, improve its data collection, reduce bureaucratic duplication, and strengthen collaboration between its offices.
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