Congress restores tax deduction for disaster and crime victims
S. 1773 — Tax Relief for Victims of Crimes, Scams, and Disasters Act · Filed by Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) · 7 cosponsors · Introduced May 15, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill reinstates the federal tax deduction for personal casualty losses (damage from crimes, scams, disasters) that was eliminated in 2017. It also extends the deadline for taxpayers to file amended returns and claim refunds for years 2018–2024 when they could not claim the deduction, allowing them to recover taxes paid on income they could have offset with casualty losses.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is to restore a deduction that was removed by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (Public Law 115-97), and to allow taxpayers to claim refunds for years when the deduction was unavailable. It is a straightforward restoration of a prior tax benefit.
What the text implies
- The refund window is limited to returns filed before January 1, 2025, and claims must be filed by the tax-filing deadline for the year of enactment; taxpayers who miss this window lose the refund opportunity even if they are otherwise eligible.
- The deduction applies only to personal casualty losses under Section 165(c)(3), which excludes business casualty losses and certain other loss categories; the scope is narrower than a full restoration of all casualty-loss deductions.
- Retroactive application to tax years 2018–2024 creates a one-time administrative burden on the IRS to process amended returns and refunds, but also creates a time-limited opportunity for taxpayers to recover taxes paid during the suspension period.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Ordinary citizens who suffered uninsured losses from disasters, crimes, or scams regain a tax deduction that was taken from them in 2017, and can recover overpaid taxes from prior years. This is a direct restoration of a taxpayer protection with no offsetting cost to the public.
Who stands to gain
- Individual taxpayers who suffered uninsured personal casualty losses (2018–2024)
Named in the bill
Internal Revenue Code Section 165, Public Law 115-97 (Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017), IRS, Senate Committee on Finance
Where it stands
7 cosponsors: 4 Republicans, 3 Democrats.
- May 15, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- May 15, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Finance · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
3 lobbying clients named this bill on 5 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $8,829,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 17 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 61% of bills with at least one filing.
Tammy Baldwin, the sponsor, reported $195,336 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- AARP — $5,300,000 on 1 filing
- Aicpa Association of International Certified Professional Accountants — $2,999,000 on 2 filings
- American Land Title Association — $530,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,596 characters) on Jul 25, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 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 Dec 2025 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 2026-10-20.
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