Military families get more time to save death money in tax accounts
H.R. 9489 — GRACE for Military Survivors Act · Filed by Mike Thompson (D-CA) · 67 cosponsors · Introduced Jun 25, 2026 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
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What it does
This bill gives military families three years to put death money into special savings accounts. The old rule gave them one year. The bill also lets families count deposits they made after October 7, 2001. They can use these accounts even if they missed the old deadline.
Who it affects
Military families whose loved ones died on or after October 7, 2001 are helped. They get more time to save the death money without paying extra taxes.
One thing to notice
The bill goes back to October 7, 2001. Families who put money in years ago can now count those deposits as valid. The IRS and banks may have to process many old deposits and send back refunds.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
67 cosponsors: 34 Republicans, 33 Democrats.
- Jun 25, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jun 25, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on Ways and Means · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 1 reports from Jun 2026 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $140,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 48 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 0% of bills with any report.
Mike Thompson, who sponsored the bill, received $1,915,886 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- With Honor Action, Inc. — $140,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- death money — Cash paid to a family when a service member dies.
- special savings accounts — Accounts where money grows without taxes.
- deposits — Money put into an account.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,346 characters) on Jul 2, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,707 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-09-23.
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