Sponsors (5)
The bill broadens and preserves a modest tax benefit for many emergency and rescue volunteers (including non-itemizers), but its low hourly valuation, 300-hour cap, verification requirements, and eligibility exclusions limit how much financial relief volunteers actually receive.
Volunteer firefighters, EMTs, rescue volunteers, Civil Air Patrol members, and search-and-rescue volunteers can claim $20 per hour (up to 300 hours) as a charitable contribution on their taxes, increasing the direct tax benefit for people who provide emergency and rescue services.
Volunteers who take the standard deduction (non-itemizers), including many lower-income individuals, can receive an equivalent tax benefit for their service hours, making the program accessible to people who don’t itemize.
The statutory $20 hourly rate is indexed to inflation, preserving the real value of the volunteer tax benefit over time for future volunteers.
Volunteers who serve many hours may still be undercompensated because the $20/hour valuation and 300-hour cap are likely below market wages, limiting the financial benefit for high-hour volunteers.
Low-income volunteers and other non-itemizers may get little practical benefit because the deduction is limited to the taxable amount attributable to the service valuation and may be small relative to their tax liability.
Requiring verification by the Secretary for eligibility could create administrative burdens, paperwork, and delays for volunteers and local organizations claiming the deduction.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Allows qualified volunteer emergency-response hours to be treated as a charitable contribution at $20/hour (capped at 300 hours) and creates a related deduction for nonitemizers.
Creates a new tax deduction treating qualified volunteer hours by bona fide volunteer firefighters, emergency medical/rescue personnel, ambulance volunteers, Civil Air Patrol, and search-and-rescue volunteers as charitable contributions worth $20 per hour (capped at 300 hours per person per year). Allows a nonitemizer deduction equal to the amount that would result from these volunteer-hour charitable contributions and indexes the $20 hourly rate for inflation beginning after 2026. The changes apply to tax years beginning after December 31, 2025.
Official title: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide a charitable deduction for the service of volunteer firefighters and emergency medical and rescue personnel.
Introduced November 4, 2025 by Robert P. Bresnahan · Last progress November 4, 2025