Mississippi Homestead Exemption for Surviving Spouses of Members Who Died on Active Duty

Mississippi exempts the whole homestead from ad valorem taxes for the unremarried surviving spouse of a member of the United States Armed Forces who was killed or died on active duty, under Miss. Code Ann. Section 27-33-75(2)(d). The provision applies to exemptions claimed in calendar year 2023 and after. The reserve and National Guard coverage is the part that gets missed. The statute itself, not only the Department of Revenue, extends the exemption to the unremarried surviving spouse of a member of a reserve component or the National Guard who was killed or died on active duty for training. Active duty for training is the status a Guard member is in during annual training and schools, and it is not what most people mean when they say active duty. A surviving spouse who was told the death did not occur on active duty because the member was a drilling Guardsman should raise this specific line with the county assessor. Nothing here turns on a disability rating, and nothing turns on the surviving spouse's age. The only continuing condition is that the spouse has not remarried. This exemption is separate from the disabled veteran exemption and from the age-based exemption, though all three land in the same Tier 3 and produce the same result: no ad valorem tax on the homestead. A surviving spouse who qualifies on more than one path does not get more than one exemption, but establishing the strongest path matters if circumstances later change. File with the county tax assessor between January 1 and April 1. The compliance conditions that govern every Mississippi homestead exemption govern this one: a Mississippi income tax return filed and paid on time and not as a nonresident, vehicles properly registered in Mississippi, and no homestead claimed on another property. Disallowance is retroactive and the county recovers the tax. HB 1380 of the 2026 session (effective July 1, 2026) does not help here and can hurt. Where a deceased spouse held a higher-tier exemption and the surviving spouse's own age or disability status is unknown, it moves the survivor to the primary applicant position and drops the exemption to the basic tier in Section 27-33-67(1). A surviving spouse claiming under this provision should file a new application in their own name. The act also renames the existing application for an additional exemption as an amended application, which lets a timely filer who claimed the wrong tier correct it; that route existed before 2026. A second 2026 act amended the same section. Senate Bill 2882, approved March 30, 2026 and effective from January 1, 2026, says no applicant may be required to produce a closing statement or disclosure, and that a conveyance reserving a life estate does not trigger a new application. It was drafted from the text before HB 1380 and does not carry HB 1380's changes, and HB 1380 does not carry its. The two change different parts of Section 27-33-31 and do not contradict each other, but a print of either act alone is missing the other's change.