North Dakota Homestead Exemption for Paraplegic and Adapted-Housing Veterans

Subsection 20(a) of section 57-02-08 exempts from taxation the fixtures, buildings and improvements of a homestead owned and occupied by a paraplegic disabled veteran of the United States armed forces, or any veteran who has been awarded specially adapted housing by the Department of Veterans Affairs, or the unremarried surviving spouse of such a veteran if the veteran is deceased, for the first one hundred twenty thousand dollars of true and full valuation. The comparison with the disabled veterans credit is the point of this entry, because the two sit in the same chapter and are measured on completely different scales. The credit in 57-02-08.8 runs on the first $9,000 of *taxable* valuation, which is about $200,000 of market value, and is then scaled down by the disability percentage. This exemption runs on the first $120,000 of *true and full* valuation, which is market value, and is not scaled by anything. A veteran who holds a specially adapted housing grant should check both and take whichever is larger; in most of North Dakota that will be the one that is not prorated by a percentage. Two limits on scope. It reaches the fixtures, buildings and improvements, so the land underneath is taxed normally, unlike the credit which runs against the homestead as valued. And there is no income test in subdivision (a); the income test that appears in subsection 26 applies to a paraplegic *person* who is not a veteran, not to the veteran limb. No rating percentage appears anywhere in the veteran limb. Paraplegia, or a VA award of specially adapted housing, is the whole test. A veteran with a specially adapted housing grant is in practice rated at or near total, but the exemption does not ask. The unremarried surviving spouse keeps it, which is a difference from the disabled veterans credit; that one terminates at the end of the taxable year of the applicant's death. Filing is the same shape: a first-time affidavit with the county auditor showing the facts and describing the property, open for public inspection, and information on request in later years. The board of county commissioners may cancel unpaid taxes for any year in which the qualifying owner held title, which is the retroactive route. The exemption does not reduce special assessments.