Sponsors
The bill creates a substantial, refundable tax credit to help homeowners in high‑risk wildfire areas afford property‑level mitigation now, but the benefit is time‑limited, cannot be stacked with other reimbursements, requires documentation, and phases out for higher earners.
Homeowners in eligible high‑wildfire‑risk zones can get a refundable tax credit equal to 25% of qualified mitigation expenses (up to $25,000 per year), reducing out‑of‑pocket costs and providing cash benefit even to low‑ and moderate‑income owners with little or no tax liability.
Residents in high‑risk communities are incentivized to undertake property‑level wildfire hardening (roofing, defensible space, sprinklers), which lowers the risk of fire damage and can reduce future recovery costs and displacement impacts.
The benefit is targeted to homes in recently affected or especially vulnerable areas (recent federal wildfire disaster within 10 years, FEMA assistance recipients, community disaster resilience zones), focusing resources on locations with the greatest mitigation need.
The credit phases out for higher‑income taxpayers (cap phases out between $200,000 and $300,000 AGI, indexed), so many higher‑income homeowners will receive reduced or no benefit.
Expenditures already reimbursed by federal, state, or local programs are ineligible, which can block stacking of assistance and leave some households unable to combine programs for full coverage of mitigation costs.
Claiming the credit requires assembling and submitting documentation to the IRS, creating a recordkeeping and compliance burden for homeowners and additional processing workload for the IRS.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Creates a refundable individual tax credit equal to 25% of qualified wildfire mitigation expenses on a primary residence, capped at $25,000 annually, with AGI phaseout and 2025–2032 applicability.
Creates a new, refundable individual tax credit that pays 25% of eligible wildfire mitigation costs for a taxpayer's primary residence located in qualifying wildfire‑prone areas, up to $25,000 per year. The credit phases out for taxpayers with adjusted gross income above $200,000 (indexed after 2024), requires documentation of expenses, disallows expenses reimbursed by government, applies to tax years beginning after Dec 31, 2024, and ends for expenditures after Dec 31, 2032.
Introduced February 4, 2025 by Kevin Kiley · Last progress February 4, 2025