Nov 03 2009
Just passed: Military Spouse Residency Relief Act
Carter Floor Remarks:
Mr. Speaker, good afternoon. As the author of the identical companion bill, H.R. 1182, and the Representative to Fort Hood, Texas, I rise in very strong support of the Military Spouses Residency Relief Act. First, allow me to thank everyone who has worked for the last few years to bring us to this point to include Senators Burr and Feinstein for taking up this cause and shepherding this past-due reform through the Senate. I would also like to thank Chairman Filner for supporting our military spouses and requesting the bill be taken up today. We greatly appreciate all the V.S.O.s who lent their support including the Military Officers Association of America, the Air Force Sergeants Associations, AMVETS, the VFW and the Military Spouse Business Association. Above all, I would like to thank all the military spouses who encouraged their Representatives and Senators to support this bill. Finally, I would like to extend a very special thanks to Rebecca Poynter and Joanna Williamson, the two entrepreneurial spouses who brought us this issue and devoted so much of their own time toward its passage.
This small measure will provide invaluable relief to numerous military spouses who regularly uproot their entire lives to accommodate the needs of our Armed Forces.
The Servicemember’s Civil Relief Act provides basic civil relief to our men and women in the Armed Services in exchange for their voluntary service. These range from relief from adjudication while deployed in combat to maintaining a single state of domicile regardless of where their military orders may send them. This state of domicile provides an important stability for our soldiers, airmen, and marines. Though their orders may send them to numerous states, they are able to simplify their state income tax requirements, maintain property titles, and continue to vote for the elected officials from their hometown. Without the SCRA protections, the service member would have to deal with all of those every time they move to a military installation located in a different state.
This bill would amend the SCRA to allow a military spouse to claim the same state of domicile as the service member for the purposes of state income and property taxes as well as voter registration. Spouses could elect to stand united with their spouse – not only in support of our country – but sharing the same state as a home base. This reform would prevent a military family from suddenly losing up to 10 percent of their income if they are called upon to relocate to a different state. This is a significant loss of income that occurs as a direct result of government orders.
S. 475 would also provide the impetus for military spouses to put their names on deeds and titles, which would build and strengthen their own credit and further ensure legal protection.
But their spouses must still deal with those stresses even while faced with the challenge of moving, finding schools for child
With Veterans Day coming next week, I ask that all of us not only remember our service members current and past, but take a moment to remember all the military spouses who have sacrificed for and supported our soldiers. Keeping that in mind, I ask my colleagues to grant this invaluable relief to our military families and support the passage of the Military Spouses Residency Relief Act.
I think this was an extremely short sighted bill that can potentially have disasterous results in many military communities around the country. I’m also certain many have looked at this strictly from the perspective of making life easier on the spouse, but what they perhaps failed to consider is the total impact on the military family. Few military members choose to claim residency in states where there is a state income tax. Most of us have spent time is one of the handful of states without state income tax (Florida is one) and establish residency there for the sole purpose of avoiding state income taxes. While it puts some extra cash in our pockets during our career, it removes us from voting in many local community issues that directly impact our family.
If you are stationed in a state where there is a state income tax you should be wary of the impact of this law. What this law will do is push thousands of military spouse votes out of the state you live in and into the tax haven states. That may be good for local politicians in the tax haven states who enjoy the military vote, but it is terrible for school districts and local politicians in states where there is a state income tax and large military population (ie Virginia). I’m sure some will argue this only provides a residency “option” to spouses, but we all know that given a choice most spouses will take the easy path and maintain residency in one locale.
I have listened to spouses complain about local school issues for most of my 26 year career. Most were perplexed when levy issues fail, yet if you asked them whether or not they voted, more often than not they’d reply, “I vote in Florida” or some other non-income tax state. Time to look in the mirror! If you want to impact the military community you live in — VOTE in the military community you live in! Not in some distance state where your husband attended basic training or flight school a decade ago!
I’m sure Representative Carter is jumping up and down today, his voter base is perhaps solidified by this effort, but school boards and pro-military politicians around the country in income tax states will soon find it even harder to pass levies and get elected.
This is the first time I find myself disagreeing with MOAA. In my mind, the negatives on this bill far outweigh the positives.
Jeez… read the damn bill before you comment. Not mandatory…..
JT – I did and you may want to read the last sentence of my second paragraph.
Most of the military I know do NOT vote in local elections, including myself. Personally, I don’t think it’s right for me to be voting and making decisions in a community that one or two years from now, I will no longer be living in. Further more, studies have shown that only 50% of active duty are married. Of those, only 50% of military spouses work, and not all of them full-time. This means that AT MOST, only 25% of the military population in a given area have employed spouses paying taxes. I would hardly call that a huge impact. You seem to demean spouses who will take the ‘easy way out’ to maintain one permanent residence… do you also feel that it’s wrong for Active Duty to do so? If not, I am curious to know what your rationale is. Both Active Duty AND their spouses are affected in the same way by PCS moves.