Connecticut Disabled Veteran Property Tax Exemption

General Statutes section 12-81(20) gives a Connecticut resident who has served, or is serving, an exemption that steps with the VA disability rating: Rating from 10 percent to 25 percent: $2,000 of assessed value. Rating above 25 percent and not more than 50 percent: $2,500. Rating above 50 percent and not more than 75 percent: $3,000. Rating above 75 percent, or any qualifying rating once the resident has attained sixty-five years of age: $3,500. Read that last line carefully, because it is the most commonly missed part. Reaching age sixty-five moves a veteran to the maximum $3,500 whatever their rating is, so a 10 percent veteran who turns sixty-five should tell the assessor. Nothing about the statute makes that automatic. There is a second route into this subdivision that does not use a percentage at all. A resident receiving a pension, annuity or compensation from the United States because of the loss in service of a leg or arm, or what the rules treat as the equivalent of such a loss, takes the exemption without reference to a rating tier. Connecticut case law has read that route as carrying the maximum exemption regardless of the rating VA assigned. Wartime service is not required here. This subdivision reaches anyone who has served or is serving with a qualifying rating, which is a wider gate than the wartime exemption in the neighbouring subdivision. Since Public Act 24-46, as narrowed by Public Acts 25-2 and 25-168, this subdivision does not apply to a veteran VA has found permanently and totally disabled based on a 100 percent service-connected rating, who takes the full exemption under subdivision (83) instead, a different and much larger benefit. It also does not apply, in a town that has adopted the section 12-81pp municipal option, to a veteran with a total disability based on individual unemployability, who takes that full exemption instead. Everywhere else a veteran on unemployability, including one VA has found permanent and total on unemployability rather than on a 100 percent rating, stays in this subdivision. The statute handles the transition in both directions: a veteran whose rating moves into either full exemption may move to it, and one whose rating moves out of it may come back here. A veteran who obtains proof of a rating late may apply within one year for an abatement or refund of the exempt share of the tax, retroactive for up to three years; the application goes to the tax collector until October 1, 2026 and to the assessor after that under Public Act 26-114. Proof of the rating goes to the assessor of the town where the exemption is sought, along with the filing required by section 12-95. Once granted, proof is not required again in later years unless the rating changes. A change in the rating is treated as a waiver of the exemption until new proof is filed, so a veteran whose rating moves should refile promptly rather than assume the town will carry it forward. This exemption is one of the ones the additional exemption in this catalog multiplies, and a municipality may add to it by local option. Read those two entries before concluding that $3,500 of assessed value is the whole benefit.