For more than a decade, family caregivers participating in the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers (PCAFC) have provided life-sustaining care to some of our nation’s most seriously wounded, ill, and injured veterans. Many of these caregivers leave the workforce entirely to provide full-time support at home, often saving the VA and taxpayers millions of dollars by reducing the need for institutional or long-term care.

While the PCAFC stipend was correctly designated as non-taxable when Congress created the program in 2010, an unintended consequence has emerged: the stipend does not count as earned income. As a result, some caregivers are unable to build retirement credits or contribute to many private retirement savings accounts during the years they devote to caregiving.

Today, the Quality of Life Foundation and eight other organizations representing millions of veterans, caregivers, and survivors sent the letter below to the House Committee on Ways and Means, requesting that the committee waive consideration of H.R. 2148 so that this bipartisan legislation may proceed to final passage.