Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assessment: Disabled Veteran Property Tax Exemption

The exemption is the State's, AS 29.45.030(e); the Alaska entry records it. Ketchikan sets its own filing date in KGB Code 4.45.065(a)(2): disabled veteran applications are due July 1 of the exemption year, three months after the senior citizen date of March 31. The State entry already gives this as its example of a local deadline. What the borough asks. The applicant must own and occupy the property as the primary residence and permanent place of abode before January 1 of the exemption year, have a service-related disability of 50 percent or more with an effective date before January 1, and be eligible for a Permanent Fund Dividend or have been eligible had they applied. With the application goes a VA letter less than 12 months old that states the percentage and whether the disability is permanent. A veteran with a permanent rating does not reapply unless residency, ownership, use of the property or disability status changes; one whose rating is not permanent sends a new letter each year before July 1. A widow or widower of a qualified veteran keeps the exemption at 60 or older on the same conditions. A home partly rented, used commercially or occupied by others besides a spouse and minor children is exempt only for the share the veteran occupies, and the applicant may not have another property receiving a senior or disabled veteran exemption. Retroactive ratings. KGB Code 4.45.070(f) lets the assessor accept disabled veteran applications for previous tax years only where the veteran applied for each of those years and then received a qualifying retroactive disability evaluation from VA or the branch of service; the Assembly may, for good cause, waive a disabled veteran's failure to apply on time for prior years. Keep applying while a claim is pending. Hardship. Under KGB Code 4.45.070(e) a claimant whose gross household income is below 150 percent of the federal poverty guideline for Alaska and whose tax bill is more than 2 percent of that income may be exempted from the tax above 2 percent of income, by filing State Form 21-400c with the assessor before July 1. Read with care. The borough's own documents do not quite agree. Code section 4.45.065(a)(2) and the application set July 1, but section 4.45.070(f) still says a first-time claimant files by March 31, with late filing for serious medical or similar cause accepted until July 1; the department applies July 1. The page and the application also cite "AS 29.45.050 (1)-(A)" for the 50 percent rule; the rule is in the statute's definition of disabled veteran, AS 29.45.030(i), and in the borough's own KGB Code 4.45.070(g)(1). Scale. The 2026 certified roll presented to the Board of Equalization on May 4, 2026 counts 46 disabled veteran exemptions worth $6,762,600 of assessed value, 15 of them in the City of Ketchikan and one in Saxman. Where to file. Ketchikan Gateway Borough Department of Assessment, 1900 First Avenue, Suite 219, Ketchikan, AK 99901; (907) 228-6640; [email protected]. The code also exempts the property of a nonbusiness organization made up of veterans with 90 days or more of service other than dishonorable, and its auxiliary (KGB Code 4.45.070(a)(4)), the State's own rule for veterans' posts.