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H.R. 1854 – RECRUIT Act of 2021

by | Sep 29, 2021 | National News

National Guard and Reserve servicemembers continue to experience problems maintaining employment because of the demands for meeting the steady operational support provided to the Active Component.  In February 2017, the Department of Labor found Gulf War-era II veterans continue to have higher unemployment rates than their civilian counterparts.

In the FY2018 annual report on the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994, the Department of Labor reported they had reviewed 1,095 cases on USERRA, and “During FY 2018, ESGR received 17,568 contacts by telephone and email. Of those contacts, 1,655 resulted in actual USERRA cases which were reviewed by ESGR Ombudsmen.”

62% of reviewed complaints under USERRA contained allegations of discrimination on the basis of past, present or future military service or status, 15% of the complaints involved allegations of improper reinstatement into civilian jobs following military service, 917 unique USERRA complaint cases in FY 2018

 

In the 116th, 1st Session of Congress H.R. 801, the Reserve Component Employer Incentive, Compensation, and Relief Act of 2019 was introduced to provide an employer tax credit to help ease the strain employers felt from multiple deployments and activation:

 

The tax credit provides a scalable benefit for each employee based on the number of days missed for uniformed service.   It covers Reservist employed and equals $1,000 plus an amount depending on the day of service in uniform during the year:

 

  • 30-89 days of service à $3,000
  • 90-179 days of service à $5,000
  • 180+ days of service à $10,000

 

During this 1st session of the 117th Congress, Representative Tim Ryan and Representative Steven Palazzo have introduced the ‘‘Reserve Employers Comprehensive Relief and Uniform Incentives on Taxes Act of 2021’’ or as the ‘‘RECRUIT Act of 2021’’. This bill offers two changes from the 116th bill. 

 

  1. All regularly scheduled weekend drills and annual training (39 days/year) were exempted when calculating qualified days of service towards this tax relief.
  2. Employer eligibility was limited to only small business concerns as defined by the Small Business Administration.

 

EANGUS supports these two changes and believes that they focus on the employers who need relief and struggle due to multiple activations and deployments from their employees.

 

While employers have tried to support national security, it would be naive to think that they are not encountering their own problems during these times.  Companies absorb the cost of replacing servicemembers with temporary employees or increasing overtime to fill the vacancy with mobilizations. Servicemembers have told EANGUS that they are seeing fewer and fewer National Guard and Reserve employees because of the cost and disruption to companies, which has even more exacerbated in high-demand specialties.  Because the purpose of tax credits is to promote a specific behavior, EANGUS believes offering tax credits to companies will encourage them to hire National Guard and Reserve members.

Respond to the Call to Action

 

For further information, please contact the EANGUS legislative director Kevin Hollinger at (202) 670-1826 or email at kevin@eangus.org.