ENROLLED
2023 Regular Session
HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOL UTION NO. 55
BY REPRESENTATIVES FIRMENT, AMEDEE, BOURRIAQUE, FARNUM,
GAROFALO, LANDRY, MCMAHEN, ORGERON, PHELPS, RISER,
SCHLEGEL, WHITE, AND WILLARD
A CONCURRENT RESOL UTION
To memorialize the United States Congress to take such actions as are necessary to pass
legislation allowing taxpayers to establish tax-advantaged catastrophe savings
accounts for disaster-related expenses.
WHEREAS, three U.S. states – Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina – currently
provide within their respective tax codes for catastrophe savings accounts; and
WHEREAS, these accounts are regular savings or money market accounts that
taxpayers designate with their financial institutions as catastrophe savings accounts and to
which limited amounts of tax-deductible contributions may be made; and
WHEREAS, the laws of the three states that provide for such accounts all stipulate
that a taxpayer may establish only one catastrophe savings account and shall specify that the
purpose of the account is to cover the amount of insurance deductibles and other uninsured
portions of risks of loss from floods, hurricanes, or other catastrophic windstorm events; and
WHEREAS, funds may be withdrawn from these accounts tax-free if used to pay
disaster-related expenses defined in law as "qualified catastrophe expenses"; if funds are
withdrawn from these accounts for purposes other than paying qualified catastrophe
expenses, then the amounts withdrawn are taxed as income; and
WHEREAS, the function of catastrophe savings accounts with respect to disaster-
related expenses is similar to that of health savings accounts, long established in the Internal
Revenue Code (26 U.S.C. 223), for health-related expenses; and
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WHEREAS, with the frequency and destructive force of weather-related disasters
increasing nationwide, the need for some form of catastrophe or emergency savings account
program for all Americans has become more pronounced; and
WHEREAS, legislation providing exclusively for the type of savings account
discussed in this Resolution was introduced in the One Hundred Fifteenth United States
Congress (H.R. 2818) and legislation including a catastrophe savings account component
has been introduced in the current congress (One Hundred Eighteenth United States
Congress, H.R. 312).
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of Louisiana does hereby
memorialize the United States Congress to take such actions as are necessary to pass
legislation allowing taxpayers to establish tax-advantaged catastrophe savings accounts for
disaster-related expenses.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution be transmitted to the
presiding officers of the Senate and the House of Representatives of the Congress of the
United States of America and to each member of the Louisiana congressional delegation.
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE
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