South Carolina Property Tax Exemptions for a Former POW or Medal of Honor Recipient

South Carolina runs three separate exemptions for this population and they do not match each other. Item (B)(43) exempts "the dwelling home and a lot not to exceed one acre of land owned in fee or for life or jointly with a spouse by a resident of this State who is a recipient of the Medal of Honor regardless of when it was awarded or the conflict involved, or who was a prisoner of war in World War I, World War II, the Korean Conflict, or the Vietnam Conflict." The surviving spouse takes it "under the same terms and conditions governing the exemption for surviving spouses pursuant to item (1) of this subsection", which imports the unmarried, resident, fee-or-life-estate test and, by cross-reference, the portability to a house bought later. One acre, not five. This exemption predates the 2024 rewrite of item (B)(1) and was not swept into the four percent classification definition, so it keeps its own hard acreage limit and it is a fifth the size. A Medal of Honor recipient who is also a permanently and totally disabled veteran should claim under item (B)(1) instead. Item (B)(26) exempts "two private passenger vehicles owned or leased by recipients of the Medal of Honor". Nine words, no surviving spouse clause, no residency clause. Item (B)(29) exempts "two private passenger vehicles or trucks, not exceeding three-quarter ton, owned or leased by and licensed and registered in the name of any member or former member of the armed forces who was a prisoner of war (POW) in World War I, World War II, the Korean Conflict, or the Vietnam Conflict and who is a legal resident of this State", and extends it to a surviving spouse for life or until remarriage. Now the three inconsistencies, in the order they will bite. The conflict list. Both POW items name four conflicts and the last of them is Vietnam. A service member held as a prisoner of war in Operation Desert Storm, in Iraq, in Afghanistan or in Somalia is not within the words of either item. The Medal of Honor clause in item (B)(43) was expressly updated to read "regardless of when it was awarded or the conflict involved"; the POW clause in the same sentence was not. There is no general definition elsewhere in Chapter 37 that fixes this. A post-Vietnam POW should be prepared for the county to read the list literally, and should claim under item (B)(1) if permanently and totally disabled, which most are. The vehicle rule for a truck. Item (B)(29) allows a truck up to three-quarter ton for a former POW. Item (B)(26) for a Medal of Honor recipient says "private passenger vehicles" and nothing about trucks. Same chapter, same subsection, different vehicles. The surviving spouse. A former POW's surviving spouse keeps one exemption category, the vehicles, under item (B)(29). A Medal of Honor recipient's surviving spouse keeps the dwelling under item (B)(43) but gets nothing under item (B)(26), because that item has no surviving spouse clause. The Department of Revenue says the same thing: the vehicle exemption for Medal of Honor recipients does not extend to surviving spouses. South Carolina also awards its own POW medal. Sections 25-11-510 through 25-11-570 create the South Carolina Prisoner of War Medal, one per person, awardable to a deceased person or to someone still held as a prisoner of war, funded through the South Carolina Prisoner of War Medal Fund. The medal is recognition; it is not the gate for any of the tax items above, which turn on the fact of captivity rather than on the medal.