THE Ridge Business JouRnal

Councilman Crowder lobbies for FVT tax exemption in DC

By Steve Crowder Town of Paradise Councilman

On February 6th, 2023, I traveled to Washington DC to lobby for Congressmen LaMalfa’s and Thompson’s bill HR176 exempting Federal Income Tax on the Fire Victims Trust settlement.

I was privileged to go with a group called “After the Fire”, born out of the Sonoma fires, founded by Jennifer Gray Thompson. Thompson has been lobbying for fire survivors since the 2017 Sonoma fire. The delegation consisted of representatives from North Bay Fires, Tubbs Fire, Camp Fire, Dixie Fire, Marshall Fire (Superior Colorado 2021), Thomas Fire, the Woolsey Fires (both

Southern California), and Coffee Strong Founder (Tubbs Fire).

The group met Monday evening to work on gaining support for HR176 from two congresswomen’s staff, one congressman, and a senator from Colorado. The senator from Colorado was extremely interested in the bill, as the cause of their Marshall Fire was about to be released as human caused. They understood that they could be in the same position as the FVT with lawsuits and tax liability. I put LaMalfa’s Chief of Staff in contact with them and he sent them a complete copy of the proposed bill. It appears we will have their support.

Our next meetings were with Senator Feinstein’s staff, Senator Padilla’s staff,

Representatives Thompson, LaMalfa, the Senate Finance Committee, the Ways and Means Committee and the US Chamber of Commerce. In each meeting we described how important it was to the fire victims to get this bill passed, emphasizing that they were paying 30% of their determination monies to an attorney and another 30% to the IRS. That does not leave much money to rebuild their lives.

We received a very positive reception

BILL HR176, continues on page A-21