Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. KUSTOFF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 9495, the bill titled the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act. I am proud that it is a bipartisan bill. In my opinion, it will make much needed improvements to our tax code.
I also thank my colleagues, Representatives Claudia Tenney from New York, Brad Schneider from Illinois, and Dina Titus from Nevada, for joining me in introducing this legislation. I thank Chairman Jason Smith for his strong support and leadership with this bill.
Mr. Speaker, today, right now, there are American citizens being held captive by terrorist groups and foreign adversaries.
Under our current law, Americans who have been detained illegally abroad may be subject to certain tax penalties and IRS fees. It is our responsibility to bring these Americans home and, frankly, to fix this unacceptable flaw in the Federal tax code. The last thing that Americans should have to deal with is more government red tape and bureaucracy.
H.R. 9495 also works to prevent tax abuse in our tax code. Since the horrific attack on Israel by Hamas, the Ways and Means Committee has investigated terror groups and bad actors that threaten the U.S. and our allies.
One finding, Mr. Speaker, which should enrage all of us, is that there are tax-exempt nonprofits operating in the United States despite being suspected of providing support to terrorist groups such as Hamas.
More recently, and I am using this term in quotes, a ``journalist'' working for a publication called ``The Palestine Chronicle,'' which is part of a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization based in the U.S., was discovered holding Israeli hostages in his Gaza home.
This is unacceptable. The financing of terrorism and extremism should not have preferential treatment under the U.S. tax code. I think this should be a no-brainer.
This legislation would revoke the tax-exempt status of any organization found to have provided--and here are the key words-- material support or resources to a designated terrorist group within the past 3 years.
I do want to note that this part of the bill was originally considered on this floor on April 15 of this year under H.R. 6408. The language in H.R. 6408 affecting these tax-exempt groups is the same language in the legislation that we are considering today. It did pass by a vote of 382 in favor to 11 against, which I think in the current political atmosphere is pretty remarkable.
I also appreciate that there are a number of people who are speaking against this bill today who voted in favor of the former bill, H.R. 6408, on April 15 of this year. Obviously, a vote of 382 in favor and 11 against shows the resounding support of this body. If there are any due process concerns, which we have been hearing about this morning, they existed in that bill on April 15, yet there were only 11 people who voted ``no.''
I was glad to see this commonsense legislation unanimously pass out of the Ways and Means Committee. Chairman Smith, in his remarks, termed it as commonsense, and that is exactly what it is.
Mr. Speaker, for all of these reasons, I strongly urge my colleagues to support this important piece of legislation today.
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