Volunteer firefighters and emergency medical responders are feeling the impact of an increase in the taxes they owe on service-related benefits. The volunteer firefighter/EMT tax hike took effect beginning in 2011 when Congress failed to extend an exemption on taxation of recruitment and retention incentives for volunteer emergency responders. In the course of filing their 2011 income taxes, thousands of firefighters and EMTs found themselves having to pay the federal government more for the right to serve their communities as volunteers.
“This year I had to pay about $300 more in taxes on the benefits I get for being a volunteer firefighter,” said Lew Clark, an active volunteer firefighter and past-chief with the Morris Volunteer Fire Department in Connecticut. “Between training, responding to emergencies, and helping raise money to keep the fire department going, I donated more than 1,000 hours of my time to the department last year. It doesn’t feel right that I am being taxed more for the services I provide.”
许多部门发现招聘和留下人员越来越困难。更严格的培训和认证要求意味着成为志愿者紧急响应者，比以往任何时候都需要更大的时间承诺。在该国的许多地区，在人员可以以任何能力响应紧急情况之前，需要六个月的夜晚和周末培训。
在努力招募招聘和保留时，许多社区提供了连衣裙制服，年度奖励仪式，减少财产税等的激励措施，以及对志愿者消防员和EMTS捐赠的服务的欣赏。即使是适度的奖励表明他们的服务也被社区认可的志愿者。美国国税局认为，所有志愿者福利纳税为收入，减少了他们的激励价值，并为提供这些社区创造行政立体感。
“We’ve been providing benefits ever since we started having trouble replacing retiring personnel,” said H. William Sundberg, President of the North Scituate Fire Department in Rhode Island. “Guys have to spend so much time training these days it’s almost like having a second job, so we give them a little something to show appreciation. It’s hard enough to get people in the door, and now we have to pay the federal government more just to maintain our incentive program. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
According to the National Fire Protection Association’s (NFPA’s) U.S. Fire Department Profile Through 2010 report, there were 768,150 volunteer firefighters in the United States in 2010, a reduction of 44,000 from 2009 and the lowest number on record going back to 1986. Additionally, a review of NFPA Profile reports over the years shows that the average age of firefighters in communities served by predominantly volunteers has been increasing steadily. In communities with a population of 2,500 or less, 28.7 percent of firefighters were over the age of 50 in 2010, up from 18.7 percent just 10 years ago. Meanwhile, the number of firefighters under the age of 40 in those same communities is down 28,437 (13.5 percent) over that same period of time.
In 2007 Congress passed the Volunteer Responder Incentive Protection Act (VRIPA), exempting property tax benefits and up to $360 per year of any other type of benefit that a volunteer firefighter or emergency medical responder receives as a reward for their service from being taxed by the federal government as income. A few months later Congress passed another bill clarifying that benefits exempted under VRIPA were not subject to federal withholding or reporting requirements. VRIPA expired at the end of 2010, and as volunteer emergency responders file their 2011 income tax returns they are feeling the impact of the new, higher tax rate. Some volunteers, unaware of the volunteer firefighter/EMT tax hike, could face additional problems.
“There is a great deal of confusion right now with regard to the expired income tax exclusion,” said Steve Hirsh, the National Volunteer Fire Council’s (NVFC) Kansas Director and a lawyer who prepares tax returns. “I find that some fire departments are not even aware that VRIPA has expired and are issuing W-2’s as though it had not. The result is that firefighters are caught in the middle. Fire departments will very likely find themselves paying both employer and employee share of the payroll taxes plus penalties. Unfortunately this will lead to less money for fire departments to provide for firefighter safety. Congress needs to act to extend VRIPA to avoid this tax increase on volunteer agencies and emergency responders.”
在房子和参议院有积极的立法，志愿者响应者激励保护法令（VRIPRA），将在志愿者消防员或EMT的任何其他类型的任何其他类型的利益上重新收入税收税收税和每年600美元收到他们服务的奖励。您可以使用NVFC的在线Capwiz服务联系您的美国代表和参议员ask them to co-sponsor VRIPRA
