Kentucky Homestead Exemption for Totally Disabled Veterans

Start with what Kentucky does not have, because most veterans arrive expecting it. There is no Kentucky disabled veteran property tax exemption. There is no tier at fifty or seventy percent, no exemption that scales with the rating, and nothing that removes a house from the tax rolls. Kentucky has one homestead exemption, in Section 170 of the state constitution and KRS 132.810, and a totally disabled veteran claims it on exactly the same terms as a sixty-five-year-old neighbor who never served. The exemption is $49,100 for the 2025-2026 assessment years. It is a deduction from assessed value, not a credit against the bill. On a home assessed at $200,000 the taxable assessment becomes $150,900. At a typical combined state and local rate this is worth a few hundred dollars a year, not a few thousand. The amount moves. Section 170 fixes the exemption at $6,500 in 1972 purchasing power, and KRS 132.810(2)(e)2 and 3 require the Department of Revenue to adjust it every two years against the federal cost of living index whenever that index has moved at least one percent. So the figure changes on a two-year cycle and any guide quoting an older number is quoting an expired one. To qualify on disability rather than age, KRS 132.810(2)(a) requires that you have been "classified as totally disabled under a program authorized or administered by an agency of the United States government" on January 1 of the year you apply. A total VA rating is such a classification. A partial one is not, at any percentage. Three conditions in the statute cost people the exemption, and none of them is obvious. First, timing. KRS 132.810(2)(c) requires that you received disability payments and maintained the disability classification for the entirety of the taxation period, which subsection (5) defines as January 1 through December 31 of the year of application. A veteran whose total rating is granted in June does not qualify for that year. Subsection (4)(a) then says the exemption is not prorated in either direction. There is no partial year. The first year you can claim is the first full calendar year you hold the rating. Second, stacking. KRS 132.810(2)(e)1 allows only one exemption per residential unit, and says so explicitly for the case where the resident is both sixty-five and totally disabled. A veteran who is seventy and rated total gets $49,100, not $98,200. Two qualifying residents in the same home also get one exemption between them. Third, the reporting duty. Subsection (4)(b) requires anyone holding the exemption on disability to report a change in disability classification to the property valuation administrator. If the rating drops below total, the exemption ends at the close of that taxation period. Now the part that is genuinely veteran-specific, and it is worth more than it sounds. KRS 132.810(2)(d)1 makes every totally disabled claimant under sixty-five reapply every single year. Subparagraph 2.a. exempts "a service-connected totally disabled veteran of the United States Armed Forces" from that. The veteran documents the disability once at application and never files again. A totally disabled non-veteran under sixty-five files annually and loses the exemption in any year the paperwork slips. This is the entire veteran-specific content of Kentucky's property tax law, and it is administrative rather than monetary. Apply on the Application for Exemption Under the Homestead/Disability Amendment, Revenue Form 62A350, filed with the property valuation administrator of your county. Subsection (4)(c) and (d) are generous about late filing: qualify before the bills are paid and you get an exoneration of the tax, qualify after they are paid and you get a refund. The exemption reaches state, county, city, and special district taxes under subsection (3), which is broader than the several states whose exemptions stop at the municipal line.