Some in military could get tax break

Senators seek savings for personnel on hardship tours

GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

Originally published Thursday, April 18, 2002

WASHINGTON -- Soldiers, sailors and other military personnel serving hardship assignments in places such as South Korea, Diego Garcia, Kosovo and Panama would find some extra money in their monthly paychecks in a proposal two senators offered Wednesday.

Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Mark Dayton, D-Minn., are sponsoring a bill to make the base pay of military personnel serving hardship tours free from federal income taxes.

Easing family strain

"Basically, they are not allowed to take their families with them, so when they go there, they are having to maintain separate households ... and the additional expenses of having two places to maintain," said Sessions, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "They are not at home with their families to help the family contain costs."

If approved, the bill would mean service members on hardship tours would save an average of $160 a month in federal taxes at a cost to the federal treasury of about $125 million to $150 million a year, Sessions said. The tax break is the same amount military personnel receive when they serve in combat zones.

Sessions didn't know how many people would be covered in the proposal but noted that the largest group was 37,000 U.S. service members in South Korea.

Pete Sepp, spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union, said that given the changing nature of what constitutes a conflict, expanding the definition of hardship and war probably makes sense.

"It's a heck of a lot better than squandering the money on another government program, which probably won't help soldiers, sailors and airmen anyway," Sepp said.

Murky definition

The political definition of war has become so murky that the tax code hasn't kept up with the original intent, which was to give service people a break when they are in harm's way, he said. Being in harm's way increasingly looks like being posted to far-flung places.

Sessions said military commanders have described the need for the tax break as critical in helping maintain personnel for the hardship tours.

Some senior enlisted members and officers are deciding to take early retirement because of the assignments and the financial burden they entail, Sessions said.

"It's costing them some good people," he said. "Hardship tours are tough anyway. It's 18-hour, 12-hour days, seven days a week."

Sessions said he has heard about the problem for almost two years and made an effort to fix it with no success. He sponsored a similar bill with Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., last year.

Sessions wants to put the proposal into a finance bill package this year or try to get it adopted as independent legislation.

"I think we will have a good bit of support for it," he said. "We would love it if we could get unanimous consent to pass it."

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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