Theresa Jones lost her husband Landon, a navy helicopter pilot, whose chopper went down in the Red Sea during Operation Enduring Freedom in 2013.

Jones and her two boys depend on their survivor benefits to get by $15,000 a year for each of her sons.. but last year those survivor benefits jumped to $5400, nearly five times higher than the $1,100 they paid in 2017.

Buffalo Congressman Brian Higgins was astounded to learn about the higher taxes families of some servicemembers have to bear and he plans to fix it.

It turns out, for whatever reason, the Department of Defense raised the tax rate on its so-called “Kiddie Tax” on Survivors benefits for children of fallen servicemembers significantly to 37%.

The government provides a number of benefits for “Gold Star” families but the tax consequences might have been missed in the new tax law.

Because surviving spouses are not allowed to receive survivor benefits from both the Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense, the DOD benefits go to the children and that is where the “Kiddie Tax Bracket” comes in.

