Bills
| 3.23.22

Do Military Spouses Need the Same Residency Exception For Taxes and Voting That Their Partners Get? (H.R. 282)

Do you support or oppose this bill?

What is H.R. 282?

(Updated March 28, 2019)

This bill would allow the spouse of a member of the Armed Forces to choose to use the same residence as the servicemember for the purposes of taxation and voting, regardless of when the marriage occurred. It extends protections granted to servicemembers to their spouses as well by eliminating a loophole that excludes spouses who had a different state of residency at the time of their marriage.

Since the passage of the Servicemember Civil Relief Act (SCRA) in 1942, Congress has given active duty servicemembers the ability to maintain their state of residency for tax and voting purposes even if they’re residing elsewhere because of their service. This saves servicemembers from having to legally reestablish a place of residence for tax purposes after each time they’re transferred.

Currently, this protection covers spouses as well as servicemembers, but only if the couple were residents of the state when the servicemember established residency. So in practice, under current law a spouse who married a servicemember after they had established residency would have to change their residency for tax purposes every time they move.

Argument in favor

Letting military spouses use the same state of residence that their servicemember claims is an obvious expansion of the existing exception for members of the military.

Argument opposed

As civilians, the spouses of servicemembers shouldn't receive a tax benefit that their partners are eligible for. Besides, only a very small number of people would be affected.

Impact

Servicemembers and their spouses; state and local governments; and officials responsible for overseeing tax policy and elections.

Cost of H.R. 282

A current CBO cost estimate is unavailable. During the last Congress, it estimated that enacting this bill's identical predecessor would have no impact on the federal budget.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Sponsoring Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) introduced this bill to give military spouses the choice to establish the same state of residency as the servicemember to have the benefit of keeping the same state of residency for voting and tax purposes:

"Current law allows active duty service members to maintain one state of legal residence for tax and voting purposes, even when service members receive military orders requiring them to relocate. Under this law, spouses are only granted the same benefit if the service member and spouse have established the same tax residence at the time of their marriage. Essentially, this requires spouses to establish residency every time the service member receives orders with assignment to a new location—adding undue stress and anxiety to military families already under the pressure of managing their relocation... Military spouses serve too, and this piece of legislation eliminates the daunting task of documenting multiple tax jurisdictions, which at times causes some spouses to forego the complication of working all together."

This legislation was passed by the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee on a voice vote and the support of 10 cosponsors in the House, all of whom are Republicans.


Media:

Summary by Eric Revell
(Photo Credit: Flickr user U.S. Army)