Rhode Island Property Tax Exemption for a Surviving Spouse of a Veteran

Rhode Island does not put its survivor property tax exemption in a separate provision. It writes the survivor into the grant itself. Subsection (a)(1) of 44-3-4 exempts "the property of each person who served ... or the property of the unmarried widow or widower of that person", so the survivor holds the exemption in their own right on the property they own. The same phrasing carries through the section. The specially adapted housing exemption in subsection (b) names the unmarried widow or widower of a deceased veteran. The prisoner of war exemption in subsection (e) names them. Cranston's $250,000 disabled veteran exemption is extended to them. Jamestown's and Charlestown's local provisions name them, in Charlestown's case expressly where the survivor is not currently receiving the statutory exemption. What makes this entry worth reading on its own is subsection (d), which is the most generous reading of "unmarried" in this catalog. In determining whether a person is the widow or widower of a veteran for the purposes of the section, the remarriage of the widow or widower "shall not bar the furnishing of the benefits of the section if the remarriage is void, has been terminated by death, or has been annulled or dissolved by a court of competent jurisdiction." Read that against the usual rule. In most states remarriage ends a survivor benefit permanently, and a surviving spouse who remarries and is widowed again has lost it for good. Rhode Island restores it. A surviving spouse who remarried in 1990 and divorced in 2005 is an unmarried widow or widower for this section. There is no disability rating anywhere in any of this, so a rating filter never hides this entry. One thing to be careful about. Subsection (d) governs this section, which is the property tax section. Rhode Island's general construction provisions for veterans benefits at 30-22-1 and 30-22-3 extend war veterans benefits to "the widow or widower or domestic partner or other surviving kin", and 30-22-6 defines domestic partner with a five-part affidavit test covering exclusivity, age and capacity, no other marriage, no prohibited blood relationship, a year of shared residence, and financial interdependence evidenced two ways. Whether that definition reaches into the property tax exemption is not settled by the text of 44-3-4, which says widow or widower. A surviving domestic partner should claim and cite 30-22-1 rather than assume the door is shut. The procedure is the veteran procedure: evidence to the assessors by the last day for filing sworn statements, standing so long as legal residence is unchanged, and five days before the roll is certified in South Kingstown.