Puerto Rico Veteran Property Tax Exemption

Article 4C of the Carta de Derechos del Veterano Puertorriqueño del Siglo XXI, Ley 203-2007 as amended, sets out three property tax exemptions. They stack, and the statute says so: each of the narrower ones is granted "en adición" to the general one and to any other exemption Puerto Rico grants taxpayers. The general exemption, for every veteran and surviving spouse. Permanently exempt from the imposition and payment of property tax, up to five thousand dollars of assessed value, is the dwelling a veteran or surviving spouse built or acquired in good faith as a principal residence. If the building holds more than one dwelling, the exempt share is the proportional part of the total value of building and lot attributable to the unit the veteran occupies, as the Executive Director of the Centro de Recaudación de Ingresos Municipales determines. Applications are made in the form CRIM determines and, once approved, take effect retroactively for up to three years. Read the figure carefully, because this is where most accounts of Puerto Rico go wrong. The statute reads "hasta cinco mil (5,000) dólares, cincuenta mil (50,000) dólares para los años económicos 2009-10" through "2018-2019." The fifty thousand was a temporary enhancement for ten named fiscal years. Those years have all passed. The operative figure today is five thousand dollars of assessed value, and any summary quoting fifty thousand is quoting an expired window. The fifty percent exemption. A veteran who receives compensation through VA for a disability of fifty percent or more is entitled to an exemption on the first fifty thousand dollars of assessed value, on the same principal residence terms. The same temporary-enhancement structure applies here too: the statute reads five hundred thousand dollars for fiscal years 2009-10 through 2018-19, and fifty thousand is the figure in force now. This tier has real administrative rules. The partial exemption applies to the house and the lot up to a maximum of one thousand square metres in an urban zone or one cuerda in a rural zone, provided the house was the residence of the veteran or the veteran and immediate family on January 1 of the tax year. The degree of disability is whatever VA certifies in writing as of January 1 of each year. It must be claimed annually at the time of payment, with a discharge document and a written VA certification of the disability degree as of the preceding January 1, plus a sworn statement that the property was in residential use. The annual filing has a large exception worth using. Where VA has established the degree of disability as permanent, the veteran does not have to produce proof of the degree each year; filing a certification with the collector that the degree has been established as permanent suffices, and no annual exemption application is needed at all after the first one. Getting "permanent" on the VA certification converts this from an annual chore into a one-time filing. The exemption ceases as soon as the property stops being used as the home of the veteran or the immediate family, or the veteran recovers normal capacity, or the degree of disability drops below fifty percent per VA certification. It is recoverable if the veteran rebuilds on the property, acquires another property and makes it their home, or regains fifty percent status. The total exemption, for a disabled or impaired veteran. Wholly exempt from property tax is any house built, acquired or remodelled, now or in future, by a veteran who is incapacitated or impaired, together with the lot on which it stands up to a thousand square metres urban or one cuerda rural, so long as it is the residence of that veteran or their immediate family. The statute's own cross-reference here is garbled in the official compilation, citing "la Ley del Congreso 06-89 [sic], efectiva el 1ro de enero de 1968," so the operative test is what CRIM applies rather than what the citation points at. Ask CRIM which certification it wants. The total exemption ceases as soon as the property stops being the home of the veteran or immediate family, and is recoverable once the veteran rebuilds on the previously exempt property or acquires another and establishes a home there. Under Article 6, on the veteran's death the privileges and exemptions continue for the surviving spouse and for minor children and adult children who are incapacitated, for as long as the veteran would have enjoyed them. They cease for a surviving spouse on remarriage, for minor children on reaching majority, and for incapacitated children when the incapacity ends after majority.