Coast Guard combat veterans finally get same tax relief as other service members
S. 878 — Coast Guard Combat-Injured Tax Fairness Act · Filed by Bill Cassidy (R-LA) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Mar 6, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill extends a 2016 law that restored improperly withheld taxes from combat-injured military severance payments to include Coast Guard members. The 2016 law applied only when the Coast Guard was under the Department of Defense; this bill adds Coast Guard members under the Department of Homeland Security (and historically under the Department of Transportation) so they receive the same tax relief and refund identification process as other combat-injured veterans.
Why we flagged it
The bill is a technical amendment extending an existing 2016 tax-relief statute to a previously excluded veteran population (Coast Guard members under DHS/DOT). It corrects an administrative gap rather than creating new policy.
What the text implies
- The bill requires DHS and DOT to identify and report improperly withheld amounts within one year, creating a one-time administrative burden but also a deadline-driven process to resolve a backlog of Coast Guard veteran claims.
- By explicitly naming DHS and DOT alongside DoD, the bill clarifies jurisdictional responsibility for Coast Guard tax relief across different departmental periods, potentially preventing future gaps if the Coast Guard's administrative home changes again.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Combat-injured Coast Guard veterans are corrected to receive the same tax-relief treatment as other combat-injured service members, closing a gap in the 2016 law. The bill imposes no new costs on citizens and restores fairness in tax treatment for a specific veteran population.
Named in the bill
Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Defense (DoD), Department of Transportation (DOT), Combat-Injured Veterans Tax Fairness Act of 2016, Public Law 114–292
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Democrats.
- Mar 6, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Mar 6, 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.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (2,942 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.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Coast Guard combat veterans finally get same tax relief as other service members” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s878 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.