Shrewsbury Veterans’ Property Tax Exemptions (Clauses 22 to 22F)

The Town of Shrewsbury grants the veterans’ exemptions of G.L. c. 59, s. 5, clauses 22 to 22F, through its board of assessors. The statute sets them as dollars off the tax bill, $400 under clause 22, $750, $1,250 and $1,500 under 22A to 22C and $1,000 under 22E, and exempts the whole domicile under 22D and 22F; a town can add to them only by accepting a local option, clause 22I, clause 22J or section 5C½. Every figure on this entry carries its source and the day it was read. The Assessors Department’s exemption table gives “Disabled Veteran (Clause 22)” an amount of $400 to $1,000, the statute’s span from clause 22 to 22E, and prints the surviving-spouse, blind and senior amounts beside it ($175 under 17D and $500 under 37A, each the statute’s, and $1,000 under 41C, twice its statute of $500). A footnote says the exemption amounts “will be credited up to double these amounts, provided the net tax paid for the current Fiscal Year is not less than that paid in the prior Fiscal Year”: an additional exemption subject to the section’s minimum-tax limit. The senior and blind amounts carry the same footnote, so the addition reaches every personal exemption, which is what section 5C½ does and clause 22J does not; the page names neither, and no town meeting vote was found in the town’s online records, so ask the assessors how the amounts compose. The table’s residence test, six months’ domicile before entering service or two years, is keyed to July 1, where the statute now asks two consecutive years before filing. The town has also accepted G.L. c. 59, s. 5N: the same table records a veterans’ work-off of up to 125 hours at the Commonwealth’s minimum wage, the hours route the section lets a town vote for itself in place of the section’s $1,500 cap. Chapter 115 benefits, the Commonwealth’s needs-based help with rent, food, fuel and medical costs, are applied for through Shrewsbury Veterans’ Services. Their amounts are set by the Commonwealth and are the same in every city and town; the statewide chapter 115 entry describes them.