Massachusetts Motor Vehicle Excise Exemption

The Massachusetts motor vehicle excise is an annual local tax assessed at $25 per thousand of a depreciating statutory valuation. On a newer car it is a few hundred dollars a year, which makes this exemption comparable in value to the base property tax abatement and rather easier to get. Section 1 of chapter 60A exempts one motor vehicle owned and registered by, or leased to, a veteran as defined in G.L. c. 4, s. 7 who, according to VA records and by reason of service in the armed forces, falls into any of these groups: Has suffered loss, or permanent loss of use, of one or both feet, or of one or both hands. Has been determined by VA to have a combined service-connected disability rating of 100 per cent. Has been determined by VA to be individually unemployable due to their service-connected disability. Is receiving a statutory award from VA for the loss of sight of one eye. Has permanent impairment of vision of both eyes at central visual acuity of 20/200 or less in the better eye with corrective glasses, or more than 20/200 with a field defect contracting the peripheral field to a widest diameter subtending no more than twenty degrees. The third of those is the one to notice. The words "be individually unemployable due to their service-connected disability" were put into this statute by the 2024 HERO Act, and they appear nowhere in the clause Twenty-second property tax series. A veteran paid at the total rate through unemployability has a clear statutory route to the excise exemption and an argument rather than a certainty on the property tax. It is the clearest drafting asymmetry in the Massachusetts file and a veteran should claim the excise exemption on the statute's own words. The blindness standard here is 20/200, which is the ordinary legal blindness threshold. The annuity in G.L. c. 115, s. 6B uses 5/200 instead. Two Massachusetts statutes, two different definitions of blind, and the annuity's is much harder to meet. The section also exempts a vehicle owned or leased by any person, veteran or not, who has suffered loss or permanent loss of use of both legs or both arms, or who meets the same 20/200 blindness standard. A disabled non-veteran is inside this part of the section. Two separate local-option exemptions sit alongside. In a city or town that accepts the relevant paragraph, the excise does not apply to a vehicle owned or registered by or leased to a former prisoner of war, defined as a regularly appointed, enrolled, enlisted or inducted member of the military forces of the United States who was captured, separated and incarcerated by an enemy during an armed conflict, nor to a vehicle of the surviving spouse of a deceased former prisoner of war until that spouse remarries or fails to renew the registration. Ask the assessors whether the town has accepted it. The limits. The exemption applies to not more than one motor vehicle owned and registered for, or leased for, the personal non-commercial use of the veteran or person. A veteran with two cars picks one, and a vehicle used in a business is outside it. Administration is refreshingly light. After the assessors have allowed the exemption, no further evidence of the qualifying facts shall be required in any subsequent year in that city or town. The assessors keep the right to refuse in a later year if they discover the claimant did not qualify when it was first granted. So this is a one-time application per community, not an annual one, which puts it ahead of the property tax clause for a veteran at one hundred per cent. A separate paragraph exempts a vehicle owned and registered by or leased to a resident in active and full-time military service in the armed forces, National Guard or reserves of any state, in the circumstances the section sets out, which is a servicemember provision rather than a veteran one. Practical note. The excise is billed by the city or town where the vehicle is garaged, not by the state, and the exemption is claimed with the local assessors on their form. A veteran who moves between Massachusetts communities has to claim it again in the new one, because the no-further-evidence rule is expressed as applying in the city or town where the exemption was allowed.