For Immediate Release
May 24, 2005
Contact: Douglas Moore
(202) 225-6531
404-433-5561 - cell

Marshall Renews Effort to End the Disabled Veterans Tax

(Washington, DC) – Last week, Congressman Jim Marshall introduced a discharge petition to force Congress to meet its obligations to veterans and allow a vote on H.R. 303, the Retired Pay Restoration Act of 2005. This morning, Marshall was the first Member of the House to sign the petition; by early afternoon, more than 40 Members of Congress had signed the petition.

Legislation to allow disabled military veterans to receive both retirement and disability compensation has been introduced in every Congress since 1987. In 2003, Congress eliminated the Disabled Veterans Tax for those who are 50% or more disabled – but the elimination of the tax was to be phased in over 10 years. H.R. 303 would eliminate the tax for all disabled military retirees with no phase-in.

“It’s a matter of priorities where tax cuts are concerned. Those who pay the Disabled Veterans Tax – America’s disabled military retirees – deserve a tax cut,” said Marshall.

H.R. 303, introduced by Michael Bilirakis of Florida, would authorize the government to implement full payment of both retirement pay and disability compensation to half a million disabled military retirees. This bipartisan legislation has 148 cosponsors from both sides of the aisle. Under current law, retired veterans with a service-connected disability and twenty years of honorable service are not permitted to receive both disability compensation and military retired pay for their years of military service from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“There has long been a fiction that military retirees receive benefits from the government for their disability. But most don’t. To add insult to injury, as a veteran’s disability increases, so does the penalty imposed by our government,” said Marshall.

A discharge petition is a special House rule allowing for a majority of the House, 218 Representatives, to force a vote on an issue that is being bottled up in committee or by the leadership. It is the same extraordinary procedure used to force passage of campaign finance reform legislation in the 107th Congress.