About the bill
More than 70% of both the House and Senate support this legislation, but it’s failed in the past four Congresses. Will this time be different?
Context
Currently, the surviving spouse of a military member who dies on active duty or of a service-connected illness or injury in retirement is entitled to survivor’s benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) fund. However, if they had also voluntarily paid into the Department of Defense’s Survivors Benefits Plan (SBP) in addition to the DIC, their survivors’ benefits can be subtracted by as much as $15,828 per year.
Essentially, the SBP is being subtracted from the total survivor’s benefit, rather than added to it. That means more than 65,000 military surviving spouses receive less money than they’re …
Sponsor and status
116th Congress (2019–2021)
This bill was introduced on February 28, 2019, in a previous session of Congress, but it did not receive a vote.
Although this bill was not enacted, its provisions could have become law by being included in another bill. It is common for legislative text to be introduced concurrently in multiple bills (called companion bills), re-introduced in subsequent sessions of Congress in new bills, or added to larger bills (sometimes called omnibus bills).
77 Cosponsors (41 Democrats, 34 Republicans, 2 Independents)
Position statements
What legislators are saying
“Senators Jones, Collins, Tester, and Crapo Introduce Legislation to Eliminate the Military Widows Tax”
—
Sen. Doug Jones [D-AL, 2018-2020]
(Sponsor)
on Mar 5, 2019
“Menendez Applauds Major Wins for NJ Military Bases in Final Passage of the National Defense Authorization Act”
—
Sen. Robert “Bob” Menendez [D-NJ]
(Co-sponsor)
on Dec 17, 2019
“Rep. Yarmuth Leads Bipartisan Group of 177 Members Supporting Repeal of So-Called \"Widow's Tax\"”
—
Rep. John Yarmuth [D-KY3]
on Sep 17, 2019
History
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Feb 28, 2019
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Introduced
Bills and resolutions are referred to committees which debate the bill before possibly sending it on to the whole chamber. |
S. 622 (116th) was a bill in the United States Congress.
A bill must be passed by both the House and Senate in identical form and then be signed by the President to become law.
Bills numbers restart every two years. That means there are other bills with the number S. 622. This is the one from the 116th Congress.
This bill was introduced in the 116th Congress, which met from Jan 3, 2019 to Jan 3, 2021. Legislation not passed by the end of a Congress is cleared from the books.
How to cite this information.
We recommend the following MLA-formatted citation when using the information you see here in academic work:
“S. 622 — 116th Congress: Military Widow’s Tax Elimination Act of 2019.” www.GovTrack.us. 2019. December 9, 2022 <https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/s622>
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Where is this information from?
GovTrack automatically collects legislative information from a variety of governmental and non-governmental sources. This page is sourced primarily from Congress.gov, the official portal of the United States Congress. Congress.gov is generally updated one day after events occur, and so legislative activity shown here may be one day behind. Data via the congress project.
