Proper Tax Treatment of Certain Disaster Mitigation Payments
PROPER TAX TREATMENT OF CERTAIN DISASTER MITIGATION PAYMENTS -- (House of Representatives - April 14, 2005)
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Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CARDIN. Further reserving the right to object, I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.
Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. It is very gracious of him.
Mr. Speaker, I come from a part of the country, Oklahoma, where disasters are not uncommon. Sometimes they are the awful man-made disasters of the Oklahoma City Bombing, something we will talk about next week, but more frequently they are the disasters associated with tornados.
In my home community in 1999 we had an F-5 tornado that destroyed in my community and the adjacent community 6,000 homes and killed 40 people. Four years later, another tornado, traveling almost in the identical path, destroyed another 500 homes and injured many people.
Each time we got superb help from the Federal Government and from FEMA, both in the immediate disaster and in the aftermath, to mitigate the consequences of future events of this type; and we were very, very grateful for that help as Americans.
It came then as an enormous surprise to the constituents that I represent years later that this help turned into potentially a taxable event. That is, there was talk at the Internal Revenue Service of going back, taking the grant and actually levying a tax on them years after they have been given.
I want to commend the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley), who has had similar circumstances dealing with hurricanes in his home State, for working with our delegation in Oklahoma on a bipartisan basis, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook), the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lucas), the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Sullivan), the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Boren) and myself and for working across the aisle with our good friends who have this problem in common.
On this floor we sometimes do have partisan disagreements, but when the good of the country is at stake, it is amazing how often we do come together. And certainly we come together regardless of party to help people that have been hurt through no fault of their own in the course of disaster and to help them prepare so that those disasters never threaten their well-being again.
So I want to thank again my friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley), for his outstanding work. I commend our colleagues in the Senate for working with him in getting this bill done just in time. Literally, I had a couple of town meetings last week when we were on break where I had constituents come and ask who had benefited from these mitigation grants, would the taxation problem be taken care of? And at that time I could not actually assure that it would be.
A number of them filed extensions rather than turn their taxes in. They were not sure what their liability was going to be. If it were not for the action of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley), if it were not for the action of the people on both sides of the aisle, if it were not for the action of the other body, they would potentially be facing a tax bill that they never anticipated.
Again, I want to thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley) for his extraordinary work in this regard. I want to tell him if he wants to run for office next time, come to Oklahoma. We remember our friends. And we appreciate very much his remarkable efforts.
I thank so much my good friend, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin).
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