Surviving Spouses Try to End “Widows’ Tax"

Amid assurances and guarantees, surviving spouses' struggle to end the so-called “Widows’ Tax” has so far come to no avail.

Every year since 2005, the U.S. Senate has voted on legislation that would end the policy that denies surviving spouses the right to collect their survivors benefit as well as the full annuity purchased by their military spouses while they were alive.

Mother of two Kimberly Hazelgrove, 36, of Lorton VA, says that once President Obama met them at a reception and promised to help. She is now wondering if that promise will ever be fulfilled. Hazelgrove lost her husband in Iraq in 2004.

Last June, the matter had come up for an Armed Services Committee session. Even though it was scheduled on the agenda for 8 a.m., the surviving spouses that attended were not told until several hours into the day that their discussion had been pushed back due to its sensitive nature. Pushed back came to mean 10:30 p.m., when the issue finally came up for a vote. Sandra Drew of Herndon VA was only one of four of the original attending survivors still present. Her husband had been killed in Bosnia in 1995. She reports being stunned to discover that the Democrats who had co-sponsored the bill in previous years had voted against it, and the Republicans, previously in opposition, were then supporting it.

Vivianne Wersel, chairperson of the Government Relations Committee at Gold Star Wives of America says, “What we always hear is that there is just no funding for us. ‘Sorry, this is not your year.’ What happens behind closed doors, we get thrown under the bus”. Wersel’s husband returned from a second tour in Iraq, but died of a heart attack in 2005.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla, a long time supporter of the survivors, said, “We’ve had a partial victory and eventually we will continue to pound away and get it done.”

The way the system is set up now for surviving spouses, one benefit is subtracted from another. This costs survivors an average of about $1,000 per month. At this time, there are approximately 54,000 survivors affected whose spouses served in conflicts from WWII to Afghanistan. This number is expected to grow.

Retired Air Force colonel Steve Strobridge, director of government relations at the Military Officers Association of America agrees, “It requires a vote of the entire Congress or a big emphasis of leadership to say we’re going to elevate this priority, and as terrible as it seems, taking care of the widows whose military sponsor was killed by service has not been given a high enough priority.”

The survivors say that they have been given promises repeatedly by politicians, but help never comes.

While House minority leader in 2005, Speaker Nancy Pelosi championed the survivors cause as a part of the Democrat’s GI Bill of Rights. This was before the Democrats gained control of Congress. However, just last week, it was not included in Obama’s proposed budget.

According to Wersel, there is cause for hope. She says that so far this year their group has enlisted over 50 co-sponsors in the Senate and over 300 in Congress. However, they are still not confident that it will pass.

In the meantime, the so-called “widow’s tax” continues to prevent surviving spouses from receiving retirement pay that was due to them when their spouses died from causes relating to military service while at the same time collecting on the annuity that their spouses opted to buy and paid for out of their pay, an average of 6.5 percent of their retirement pay in premiums, often more than $100 per month.

President Obama co-sponsored legislation while he was a senator right before speaking at a Gold Star Wives reception on Capitol Hill, even though he declined to include it in is budget last week.

However, the survivors have won a small victory. Starting in 2008, Congress has awarded survivors an extra $50 per month.

When the survivors go to Washington, they are always warmly received, but, so far, beyond the $50, very little has been done.

Drew said that some committee members seemed rather sheepish as they voted down the provision, “visibly uncomfortable that I was in the room. It went right down party lines, and it shouldn’t be a partisan issue”.

For a decade now, the “war widows” have come to Capitol Hill in their matching yellow suit jacket and hats seeking an end to the “widows’ tax”. Sen. Nelson says that part of the problem is the cost. He says that it will cost $6.7 billion over a decade. Nonetheless, Strobridge says that something could be done, if only the political will existed.

For Wersel, however, “The whole process has become rhetoric”.

Source: Association Press

For assistance with benefit claims for Veterans or surviving spouses contact the National Veterans Foundation’s Lifeline for Vets™ at 888-777-4443.  To support the NVF and its program and services for Veterans and their family members, visit www.help-veterans.org.