Washington, D.C. – Each year in the United States more than 3,000 people die and 18,000 are injured from fire.
To reduce the losses from fire, the United States Congress introduced the Fire Sprinkler Incentive Act. By offering tax incentives, this bipartisan legislation is intended to promote the installation of fire sprinklers in existing buildings.
Passage of this act would provide a federal tax incentive by classifying the installation of automatic fire sprinklers in existing buildings as five-year property for purposes of tax depreciation. This would allow building owners to depreciate the cost of a sprinkler system over an accelerated schedule that would allow cost recovery in a much shorter time frame than offered by the current tax codes. In the current tax law, fire sprinklers are considered as 27.5 to 39 year property depending on the type of building.
This legislation is assigned to the House of Representatives (H.R. 1131) and was cosponsored by Congressman Curt Weldon (PA), and Congressman Jim Langevin (RI). The Senate version of this bill (S. 512) was cosponsored by Senators Rick Santorum (PA) and John D. Rockefeller, IV (WV).
