Sen. Doug Jones, D-Alabama, announced on Tuesday that his Military Widow’s Tax Elimination Act gained its 61st cosponsor, passing the threshold of 60 cosponsors needed to ensure a vote on the Senate floor.
The bill aims to allow military widows and widowers to collect money from both the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the U.S. Department of Defense.
“Ending the military widow’s tax is long overdue,” Jones said. “These families have sacrificed more for our nation than most people can ever fully appreciate, and they deserve to get the full survivor benefits to which they are entitled and have paid for. This is an important milestone in the fight to end the widow’s tax and I am hopeful we can continue to build on this progress and get our bill to the President’s desk this year
More than half of the Senate Armed Services Committee, of which Jones is a member, co-sponsored the legislation.
Current law does not allow spouses to collect full benefits from both programs. Instead, survivor benefits from the U.S. Department of Affairs are subtracted from those paid by the U.S. Department of Defense.
