I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 1868
To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to postpone tax deadlines
and reimburse paid late fees for United States nationals who are unlaw-
fully or wrongfully detained or held hostage abroad, and for other pur-
poses.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH5, 2025
Mr. H
ILLof Arkansas (for himself, Ms. TITUS, Ms. TENNEY, and Mr. BEYER)
introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on
Ways and Means
A BILL
To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to postpone
tax deadlines and reimburse paid late fees for United
States nationals who are unlawfully or wrongfully de-
tained or held hostage abroad, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Stop Tax Penalties 4
on American Hostages Act of 2025’’. 5
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SEC. 2. POSTPONEMENT OF TAX DEADLINES FOR HOS-1
TAGES AND INDIVIDUALS WRONGFULLY DE-2
TAINED ABROAD. 3
(a) I
NGENERAL.—Chapter 77 of the Internal Rev-4
enue Code of 1986 is amended by inserting after section 5
7510 the following new section: 6
‘‘SEC. 7511. TIME FOR PERFORMING CERTAIN ACTS POST-7
PONED FOR HOSTAGES AND INDIVIDUALS 8
WRONGFULLY DETAINED ABROAD. 9
‘‘(a) T
IMETOBEDISREGARDED.— 10
‘‘(1) I
N GENERAL.—The period during which 11
an applicable individual was unlawfully or wrongfully 12
detained abroad, or held hostage abroad, shall be 13
disregarded in determining, under the internal rev-14
enue laws, in respect of any tax liability of such indi-15
vidual— 16
‘‘(A) whether any of the acts described in 17
section 7508(a)(1) were performed within the 18
time prescribed thereof (determined without re-19
gard to extension under any other provision of 20
this subtitle for periods after the initial date (as 21
determined by the Secretary) on which such in-22
dividual was unlawfully or wrongfully detained 23
abroad or held hostage abroad), 24
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‘‘(B) the amount of any interest, penalty, 1
additional amount, or addition to the tax for 2
periods after such date, and 3
‘‘(C) the amount of any credit or refund. 4
‘‘(2) A
PPLICATION TO SPOUSE.—The provisions 5
of paragraph (1) shall apply to the spouse of any in-6
dividual entitled to the benefits of such paragraph. 7
‘‘(3) S
PECIAL RULE FOR OVERPAYMENTS .—The 8
rules of section 7508(b) shall apply for purposes of 9
this section. 10
‘‘(b) A
PPLICABLEINDIVIDUAL.— 11
‘‘(1) I
N GENERAL.—For purposes of this sec-12
tion, the term ‘applicable individual’ means any indi-13
vidual who is— 14
‘‘(A) a United States national unlawfully 15
or wrongfully detained abroad, as determined 16
under section 302 of the Robert Levinson Hos-17
tage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Account-18
ability Act (22 U.S.C. 1741), or 19
‘‘(B) a United States national taken hos-20
tage abroad, as determined pursuant to the 21
findings of the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell 22
(as described in section 304 of the Robert 23
Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Tak-24
ing Accountability Act (22 U.S.C. 1741b)). 25
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‘‘(2) INFORMATION PROVIDED TO TREASURY .— 1
For purposes of identifying individuals described in 2
paragraph (1), not later than January 1, 2026, and 3
annually thereafter— 4
‘‘(A) the Secretary of State shall provide 5
the Secretary with a list of the individuals de-6
scribed in paragraph (1)(A), as well as any 7
other information necessary to identify such in-8
dividuals, and 9
‘‘(B) the Attorney General, acting through 10
the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, shall provide 11
the Secretary with a list of the individuals de-12
scribed in paragraph (1)(B), as well as any 13
other information necessary to identify such in-14
dividuals. 15
‘‘(c) M
ODIFICATION OFTREASURYDATABASES AND 16
I
NFORMATIONSYSTEMS.—The Secretary shall update, as 17
necessary, any database or information system of the De-18
partment of the Treasury in order to ensure that the pro-19
visions of subsection (a) are applied with respect to each 20
applicable individual. 21
‘‘(d) R
EFUND ANDABATEMENT OFPENALTIES AND 22
F
INESIMPOSEDPRIOR TOIDENTIFICATION ASAPPLICA-23
BLEINDIVIDUAL.—In the case of any applicable indi-24
vidual— 25
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‘‘(1) for whom any interest, penalty, additional 1
amount, or addition to the tax in respect to any tax 2
liability for any taxable year ending during the pe-3
riod described in subsection (a)(1) was assessed or 4
collected, and 5
‘‘(2) who was, subsequent to such assessment 6
or collection, determined to be an individual de-7
scribed in subparagraph (A) or (B) of subsection 8
(b)(1), 9
the Secretary shall abate any such assessment and refund 10
any amount collected to such applicable individual in the 11
same manner as any refund of an overpayment of tax 12
under section 6402.’’. 13
(b) C
LERICALAMENDMENT.—The table of sections 14
for chapter 77 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is 15
amended by inserting after the item relating to section 16
7510 the following new item: 17
‘‘Sec. 7511. Time for performing certain acts postponed for hostages and indi-
viduals wrongfully detained abroad.’’.
(c) EFFECTIVEDATE.—The amendments made by 18
this section shall apply to taxable years ending after the 19
date of enactment of this Act. 20
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SEC. 3. REFUND AND ABATEMENT OF PENALTIES AND 1
FINES PAID BY ELIGIBLE INDIVIDUALS. 2
(a) I
NGENERAL.—Section 7511 of the Internal Rev-3
enue Code of 1986, as added by section 2, is amended 4
by adding at the end the following new subsection: 5
‘‘(d) R
EFUND ANDABATEMENT OFPENALTIES AND 6
F
INESPAID BYELIGIBLEINDIVIDUALS.— 7
‘‘(1) I
N GENERAL.— 8
‘‘(A) E
STABLISHMENT.—Not later than 9
January 1, 2026, the Secretary (in consultation 10
with the Secretary of State and the Attorney 11
General) shall establish a program to allow any 12
eligible individual (or the spouse or any depend-13
ent (as defined in section 152) of such indi-14
vidual) to apply for a refund or an abatement 15
of any amount described in paragraph (2) (in-16
cluding interest) to the extent such amount was 17
attributable to the applicable period. 18
‘‘(B) I
DENTIFICATION OF INDIVIDUALS .— 19
Not later than January 1, 2026, the Secretary 20
of State and the Attorney General, acting 21
through the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell (as 22
described in section 304 of the Robert Levinson 23
Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Ac-24
countability Act (22 U.S.C. 1741b)), shall— 25
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‘‘(i) compile a list, based on such in-1
formation as is available, of individuals 2
who were applicable individuals during the 3
applicable period, and 4
‘‘(ii) provide the list described in 5
clause (i) to the Secretary. 6
‘‘(C) N
OTICE.—For purposes of carrying 7
out the program described in subparagraph (A), 8
the Secretary (in consultation with the Sec-9
retary of State and the Attorney General) shall, 10
with respect to any individual identified under 11
subparagraph (B), provide notice to such indi-12
vidual— 13
‘‘(i) in the case of an individual who 14
has been released on or before the date of 15
enactment of this subsection, not later 16
than 90 days after the date of enactment 17
of this subsection, or 18
‘‘(ii) in the case of an individual who 19
is released after the date of enactment of 20
this subsection, not later than 90 days 21
after the date on which such individual is 22
released, 23
that such individual may be eligible for a refund 24
or an abatement of any amount described in 25
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paragraph (2) pursuant to the program de-1
scribed in subparagraph (A). 2
‘‘(D) A
UTHORIZATION.— 3
‘‘(i) I
N GENERAL.—Subject to clause 4
(ii), in the case of any refund described in 5
subparagraph (A), the Secretary shall 6
issue such refund to the eligible individual 7
in the same manner as any refund of an 8
overpayment of tax. 9
‘‘(ii) E
XTENSION OF LIMITATION ON 10
TIME FOR REFUND .—With respect to any 11
refund under subparagraph (A)— 12
‘‘(I) the 3-year period of limita-13
tion prescribed by section 6511(a) 14
shall be extended until the end of the 15
1-year period beginning on the date 16
that the notice described in subpara-17
graph (C) is provided to the eligible 18
individual, and 19
‘‘(II) any limitation under section 20
6511(b)(2) shall not apply. 21
‘‘(2) E
LIGIBLE INDIVIDUAL.—For purposes of 22
this subsection, the term ‘eligible individual’ means 23
any applicable individual who, for any taxable year 24
ending during the applicable period, paid or incurred 25
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any interest, penalty, additional amount, or addition 1
to the tax in respect to any tax liability for such 2
year of such individual based on a determination 3
that an act described in section 7508(a)(1) which 4
was not performed by the time prescribed therefor 5
(without regard to any extensions). 6
‘‘(3) A
PPLICABLE PERIOD.—For purposes of 7
this subsection, the term ‘applicable period’ means 8
the period— 9
‘‘(A) beginning on January 1, 2021, and 10
‘‘(B) ending on the date of enactment of 11
this subsection.’’. 12
(b) E
FFECTIVEDATE.—The amendment made by 13
this section shall apply to taxable years ending on or be-14
fore the date of enactment of this Act. 15
Æ
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