Harford County Senior Citizens and Veterans Tax Credit for Disabled Veterans

Harford County has not adopted the disabled veteran credit in Tax-Property Article section 9-265. Its credit for disabled veterans comes from section 9-258, through County Code section 123-46.5. The code covers an active-duty, retired, or honorably discharged member of the uniformed services, the reserves, or the National Guard who has a service-connected disability as defined in 38 U.S.C. 101(16), and that member's surviving spouse who has not remarried. Since Bill 22-022 the code defines a disability as a medically determined impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities and is reasonably certain to last for life. There is no age or income test. The credit is 20% of the county and highway taxes after other county credits, on a home assessed at $600,000 or less at the first application, for no more than 20 years. The Treasurer's rules of January 2023, and the Treasury's page, add a rating floor the code does not have: VA must have declared "a permanent service connected disability of at least 50%". A veteran rated below 50% whose disability meets the code's definition is within section 123-46.5 but will be turned down under the rules, and the rules make the Treasurer's decision final. The rules also extend the spouse route to the spouse of a member killed in action. Applications are taken from January 15 to April 1 each year, with the VA rating letter and discharge papers, and a new application is needed every year. A separate County Code section, 123-43.4, gives a 100% credit to the surviving spouse of a service member who died in the line of duty. The state exemption under section 7-208 covers the same spouse.