Massachusetts Veteran Property Tax Abatement, Clause Twenty-second

Massachusetts gives veterans a property tax abatement rather than an exemption of assessed value, and a reader coming from almost any other state in this catalog should adjust their expectations sharply downward before reading the detail. The formula in every clause is the same: the abatement is two thousand dollars of assessed taxable valuation or a stated dollar sum, whichever would result in an abatement of the greater amount of actual taxes due. In practice, for any community with a tax rate under $200 per thousand, the dollar sum wins. So these are fixed dollar reductions of the tax bill. Clause Twenty-second is the base and it pays $400. It reaches four groups: Veterans who, as a result of disabilities contracted in the line of duty, have a disability rating of ten per cent or more as determined by VA or by any branch of the armed forces. A branch rating counts, which reaches a chapter 61 medical retiree who never filed a VA claim. Veterans awarded the Purple Heart. Paragraph (c) says in terms that no evidence of disability shall be required, so this is a decoration route with no rating at all. Veterans of the Spanish War, the Philippine Insurrection or the Chinese Relief Expedition. Spouses of qualifying veterans, unremarried surviving spouses of veterans who were entitled at death or who lost their lives in those conflicts, and the fathers and mothers of veterans who lost their lives in service, with father and mother construed to include adoptive parents and persons who stood in loco parentis. Paragraph (f) adds a route for the unremarried surviving spouse of a World War I veteran, subject to a whole-estate limit of twenty thousand dollars. Then the ladder. Clause Twenty-second A pays $750 for the loss or permanent loss of use of one foot at or above the ankle or one hand at or above the wrist, for a statutory VA award for the loss of sight of one eye, for the Congressional Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross or Air Force Cross, or for having been a prisoner of war. Clause Twenty-second B pays $1,250 for the loss or permanent loss of use of both feet, both hands, or one of each, or the loss of sight of both eyes. Clause Twenty-second C pays $1,500 for a permanent and total service-connected disability where the veteran received assistance in acquiring specially adapted housing from VA. Set the numbers against the tax bills. In much of eastern Massachusetts a single-family property tax bill runs well past $8,000, and in some communities past $15,000. A $400 abatement is a few per cent of it. A veteran expecting the kind of relief Nebraska or Wisconsin gives will be disappointed, and this catalog would rather say so plainly than let the clause numbers imply otherwise. The residency and service conditions are identical across the clauses and they are strict. The claimant must be a legal resident of the commonwealth, a veteran as defined in G.L. c. 4, s. 7, clause Forty-third, discharged or released under other than dishonorable conditions, and either domiciled in Massachusetts for at least six months before entering service, or resident in the commonwealth for two consecutive years before filing. Note that clause Forty-third, not the broad chapter 115 definition, governs here. The property must be occupied in whole or in part as the claimant's domicile. Cost sharing is split, which is unlike Nebraska's full state reimbursement and unlike Alaska's unfunded mandate. For clause Twenty-second, the city or town bears $2,000 of valuation or up to $175, and the commonwealth bears the balance up to $225. The same pattern runs up the ladder: the municipality always carries the first $175 and the commonwealth reimburses the rest through the state treasurer. Two administrative points make this easier than it looks. Recertification mostly stops after the first year. In clauses Twenty-second, Twenty-second A, Twenty-second B and Twenty-second C, once the assessors have allowed the exemption no further evidence of the qualifying facts shall be required, and in clause Twenty-second the statute adds that it may not even be requested, unless the rating drops below ten per cent. The assessors keep the right to refuse in a later year if they discover the claimant did not qualify when it was first granted. The exemptions do not stack. The preamble to G.L. c. 59, s. 5 provides that a person receiving an exemption under clause Twenty-second or any of Twenty-second A through Twenty-second G, or under the senior and hardship clauses it lists, shall not receive an exemption on the same property under any other provision of the section, except clause Eighteenth or Forty-fifth. A veteran who also qualifies as a senior picks one. Work out which clause pays most before filing. Two anti-avoidance rules. No real estate is exempt which the assessors adjudge was conveyed to the veteran, spouse, surviving spouse or parent to evade taxation. And where the property is larger than a single-family house, only the value of the part occupied as the domicile, or a proportionate part of the dollar figure, is abated. One provision worth knowing for a veteran who returns to service: clause Twenty-second A says that no person who has received an exemption under it shall be denied the benefit because they return to active service. For a surviving spouse, clause Twenty-second A, B, C, E and F each continue the exemption unchanged after the veteran's death as long as the surviving spouse remains an owner and occupant of the domicile. That is a considerably better result than the base clause, which ends the spouse's route on remarriage.