We Saved Lives. They Stormed the Capitol. So Why Are They Getting the Settlement

A frontline nurse’s call for tax justice — and a question every American should be asking

By Stacy Williams, MSN, MBA, RN

When COVID-19 descended on this country in 2020, there were two kinds of Americans. There were those who ran toward the fire — and those who, four years later, ran toward the Capitol. I was one of the nurses who ran toward the fire.

I left my home. I left my family. I left the state of Texas and deployed across this country as a travel nurse, moving from assignment to assignment, working in facilities that were overwhelmed, understaffed, and terrifying. I watched people die alone because no one else would go in. I suited up in whatever protective equipment was available — sometimes not
enough — and I did my job. Not because anyone was paying me to be a hero, but because patients needed care and there were not enough nurses to provide it. That was my choice. I would make it again.

What I did not choose — what no one told me, and what Congress promised to fix and then quietly forgot — was the tax bill that was waiting for me on the other side.

The Promise That Was Never Kept

During the height of the pandemic, lawmakers across the political spectrum publicly acknowledged that travel healthcare workers were being hit with an unfair and unexpected tax burden. Working across multiple states meant owing income taxes to multiple states. We suffered a minimum 60 hour work week.The elevated pay — which reflected the extreme danger, the staffing crisis, and the sheer human need of the moment — pushed nurses into higher tax brackets. For many of us, that
meant tax liabilities we never anticipated and could not have planned for.
Congress knew.

They proposed fixes. The HEROES Act included a four-month federal
income tax holiday for medical professionals and first responders. The Frontline Heroes Appreciation Act proposed a $7,500 tax credit for healthcare workers on the frontlines. The Remote and Mobile Worker Relief Act specifically addressed the multi-state tax problem for nurses and doctors who crossed state lines to serve.

None of them passed.

We were told relief was coming. We believed our government. We kept working. And when the dust settled, the tax bills came — and the relief never did.

Meanwhile, in Washington

Fast forward to January 20, 2025. On his first day back in office, President Trump issued a blanket pardon to more than 1,500 people who had been charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 assault on the United States Capitol — including individuals convicted of attacking police officers. The total cost of that insurrection to American taxpayers has been estimated at $2.7 billion. Court-ordered restitution — money owed directly for the physical
damage done to the Capitol — was wiped away with the pardons. Of the nearly $3 million owed in restitution by January 6 defendants, only 15% had been repaid before the pardons erased the rest.

And now it goes further.

A nearly $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded settlement fund has been established, described as reimbursement for those who claim they were wrongly prosecuted. Pardoned rioters —some of whom have since been charged with new crimes — are now in line to receive payouts from the American taxpayer. Vice President Vance has declined to rule out payments even to those who assaulted police officers that day.

Read that again. People who beat law enforcement officers with flagpoles at the Capitol may receive taxpayer-funded settlements. Meanwhile, nurses who saved lives during a national emergency are receiving CP504 notices — the IRS’s final warning before levy action — on tax debts that arose directly from
their pandemic service.

The Arithmetic of Injustice

I want to be precise here, because precision matters. I am not a tax cheat. I am not trying to avoid my legal obligations. I am a psychiatric nurse
with a master’s degree in nursing and an MBA. I have given my career to the care of some of the most vulnerable patients in our healthcare system. I raised a family. I followed the law. I did everything we are told is right.
And I answered the call when my country needed me most.

And right now, my household expenses exceed my household income. I am receiving levy notices from the IRS on a six-figure tax debt that exists because I worked in multiple states during a pandemic, because Congress promised relief and didn’t deliver it, and because no one — not a single agency, not a single piece of legislation — ever made frontline healthcare
workers whole.

I know I am not alone. There are thousands of travel nurses, respiratory therapists, doctors, and allied health professionals across this country in exactly the same position. We toed the line. We took the risk. We lost colleagues. Some of us lost our own health. We came home —many of us, years later and to job markets that had moved on without us — and we found a tax bill waiting at the door.

Where Is Our Settlement?

I am not asking for a pardon. I did nothing wrong. I am asking for the same institutional acknowledgment that other groups have received. I am asking for what was promised — and never delivered — when Congress proposed
legislation specifically designed to protect healthcare workers from the tax consequences of pandemic service. If the government can establish a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who participated in an assault on democracy, it can find a mechanism to provide meaningful relief to the
nurses, doctors, and healthcare workers who held this country together when it was falling apart.

There are concrete steps that could be taken right now:
For healthcare workers currently facing pandemic-related tax debt:
The IRS should establish a formal, streamlined pathway for penalty abatement based on the extraordinary circumstances of COVID-19 travel nursing.
Congress should revisit and pass the multi-state tax relief that was proposed but abandoned. The Taxpayer Advocate Service should be adequately resourced to handle the volume of healthcare worker hardship cases.

For those who served and are now struggling:
Know that the Taxpayer Advocate Service (1-877-777-4778) exists to help
Know that Offer in Compromise and Currently Not Collectible status are real options for some.
Know that a recent federal court ruling (Kwong v. United States, November 2025) found that IRS penalties should not have accrued during the federally declared COVID disaster period — and that you may have until July 10, 2026 to file a claim for relief under that ruling

A Final Word

I am writing this not out of bitterness, but out of a deep and abiding sense of injustice — and because I know that silence on this issue serves no one.
Healthcare workers do not riot. We do not storm buildings. We do not make the evening news by breaking things. We show up. We do the work. We absorb the loss. And then we go home and pay our bills — or try to.

We deserved better from our government during the pandemic. We deserve better now. The question of who this country chooses to protect — who receives relief, who receives settlement funds, and who receives a levy notice — is ultimately a question about values. It is a question about what we believe service means. It is a question about who we honor, and who we leave behind.

I know which side of that line I was standing on in 2020.
I’d like to know which side my government is standing on now.

Stacy Williams, MSN, MBA, RN is a psychiatric nursing specialist. She
served as a travel nurse during the COVID-19 pandemic and is an advocate for healthcare worker rights and mental health equity.