Credit: Office of Congressman Fitzpatrick
Despite an assurance from the IRS that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would not force local volunteer fire companies to pay an additional tax, the House of Representatives passed a bill to ensure it would could not happen.
The Protecting Volunteer Firefighter’s and Emergency Responders Act (HR3685) was passed last week with bipartisan support. Next, the bill moves to the Senate chamber.
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Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA 8) has supported the act and said the action in the House “took another step to protect a group of Americans from the harm caused by this president’s law.”
“The bipartisan House set the record straight when it comes to the effects of the president’s healthcare law on local volunteer fire departments. While the Internal Revenue Service clarified the rule earlier in the year, it was appropriate for the Congress to take action simply because the Administration has shown a willingness to make changes on the fly,” a statement from Fitzpatrick read.
Fitzpatrick’s mission is to clear up the element of the ACA, also known as Obamacare, that allows the taxing agency to consider volunteers as employees for tax purposes and therefore first responder nonprofits with more than 50 “employees” will have to offer health insurance which could cripple those volunteer based organizations financially.
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“Final regulations generally will not require volunteer hours of bona fide volunteer firefighters and volunteer emergency medical personnel at governmental entities or tax-exempt organizations to be counted when determining an employer’s full-time employees or full-time equivalent employees,” the IRS told Fizpatrick in January.
The Bucks County-based congressman Fitzpatrick was a co-sponsor of the Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act and raised his concerns publicly in late 2013 and early 2014.
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