HLS 23RS-1549 ORIGINAL
2023 Regular Session
HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOL UTION NO. 55
BY REPRESENTATIVES FIRMENT AND GAROF ALO
CONGRESS: Memorializes congress to pass legislation allowing for tax-advantaged
emergency savings accounts
1 A CONCURRENT RESOL UTION
2To memorialize the United States Congress to take such actions as are necessary to pass the
3 Emergency Savings Accounts Act of 2023 or any similar legislation allowing
4 taxpayers to establish tax-advantaged savings accounts for disaster-related expenses.
5 WHEREAS, three U.S. states – Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina – currently
6provide within their respective tax codes for catastrophe savings accounts; and
7 WHEREAS, these accounts are regular savings or money market accounts that
8taxpayers designate with their financial institutions as catastrophe savings accounts and to
9which limited amounts of tax-deductible contributions may be made; and
10 WHEREAS, the laws of the three states that provide for such accounts all stipulate
11that a taxpayer may establish only one catastrophe savings account and shall specify that the
12purpose of the account is to cover the amount of insurance deductibles and other uninsured
13portions of risks of loss from floods, hurricanes, or other catastrophic windstorm events; and
14 WHEREAS, funds may be withdrawn from these accounts tax-free if used to pay
15disaster-related expenses defined in law as "qualified catastrophe expenses"; if funds are
16withdrawn from these accounts for purposes other than paying qualified catastrophe
17expenses, then the amounts withdrawn are taxed as income; and
18 WHEREAS, the function of catastrophe savings accounts with respect to disaster-
19related expenses is similar to that of health savings accounts, long established in the Internal
20Revenue Code (26 U.S.C. 223), for health-related expenses; and
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HCR NO. 55
1 WHEREAS, with the frequency and destructive force of weather-related disasters
2increasing nationwide, the need for some form of catastrophe or emergency savings account
3program for all Americans has become more pronounced; and
4 WHEREAS, the Emergency Savings Accounts Act of 2023 has been introduced as
5H.R. 312 in the One Hundred Eighteenth United States Congress; and
6 WHEREAS, contributions to the emergency savings accounts proposed in this
7federal legislation could be used for specific emergency-related purposes including qualified
8catastrophe expenses as defined by the states that allow catastrophe savings accounts
9currently.
10 THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of Louisiana does hereby
11memorialize the United States Congress to take such actions as are necessary to pass the
12Emergency Savings Accounts Act of 2023 or any similar legislation allowing taxpayers to
13establish tax-advantaged savings accounts for disaster-related expenses.
14 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution be transmitted to the
15presiding officers of the Senate and the House of Representatives of the Congress of the
16United States of America and to each member of the Louisiana congressional delegation.
DIGEST
The digest printed below was prepared by House Legislative Services. It constitutes no part
of the legislative instrument. The keyword, one-liner, abstract, and digest do not constitute
part of the law or proof or indicia of legislative intent. [R.S. 1:13(B) and 24:177(E)]
HCR 55 Original 2023 Regular Session Firment
Memorializes the U.S. Congress to pass the Emergency Savings Accounts Act of 2023 or
any similar legislation allowing taxpayers to establish tax-advantaged savings accounts for
disaster-related expenses.
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