Arkansan attends ‘widows tax’ event

Julie J. Fitts traveled from Northwest Arkansas last week to celebrate a change in law benefiting military widows.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors and several other groups helped organize Wednesday’s Capitol Hill reception.

“It was wonderful,” she said.

The passage of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act will phase out a law that was unofficially known as the “widows tax.” Not actually a tax, the law reduced or eliminated payments from a Department of Defense annuity program called the Survivors Benefit Plan that were supposed to go to more than 65,000 surviving spouses, including more than 900 in Arkansas.

Most had husbands who signed up at retirement for the Survivor Benefit Plan to help the wives who might outlive them, and they made monthly payments. Fewer surviving spouses had military spouses who died on active duty.

But when they died because of military injuries or illnesses, the law wouldn’t allow their survivors to collect the promised insurance because they also qualified for an unrelated benefit from the Veterans Administration.

For most widows, the restored survivors’ insurance payments will mean up to $10,000 more per year, according to Department of Defense estimates. For some, it will be more.

Fitts, who lives outside Farmington, lost her husband, retired Staff Sgt. Coy Fitts, on May 24, 2011. He was 46.

Fitts said the offset came as a surprise.

“It was never disclosed,” she said.

Attending Wednesday’s reception was “a once-ina-lifetime thing,” Fitts said, enabling her to meet other widows who had lobbied to change the law.

“We were so happy because some of us have been fighting this for a lot of years. It’s like we could be at peace with it now,” she said.

The change in the law is something her husband would have wanted, she said.

“When I was in my room getting ready to go to the reception, my thought was, “Coy, we’ve done it for you. This is all for you and all the other men and women that have given their lives,’” she said.