When Hostages Return Home, the Tax Man Greets Them

The thing about being held hostage in a foreign land is that it's challenging to pay your taxes. You know who doesn't care about that inconvenience? The IRS. As Democratic Sen. Chris Coons writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, American journalist Jason Rezaian got hit with back taxes and late penalties totaling thousands of dollars upon his release from Iran after 544 days, and he's not alone. The agency said it didn't have the authority to bend the rules. In his essay, Coons makes the case for Congress to permanently bend them.

"Just as hostages can't file with the IRS, they also can't pay credit cards, auto loans, or mortgages," he writes. "These missed payments can damage their credit scores. If they aren't receiving a paycheck while imprisoned, they aren't paying payroll taxes, diminishing the Social Security benefits they receive at retirement." Coons lays out three bipartisan initiatives to address all of these things—the Stop Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, the Fair Credit for American Hostages Act, the Retirement Security for American Hostages Act—and calls them "badly overdue." (Read the full op-ed.)