Tennessee Elderly and Disabled Homeowner Property Tax Relief

A veteran who does not meet the definition in 67-5-704 is not out of the tax relief program. Tennessee runs two other categories out of the same statute, the same county trustee and the same thirty-five day deadline. Section 67-5-702 covers elderly low-income homeowners. The taxpayer must be sixty-five on or before December 31 of the year for which application is made, own the home and use it as the primary residence. Section 67-5-703 covers disabled homeowners: totally and permanently disabled as determined by the rules of the State Board of Equalization, on or before December 31 of the application year. That is a state determination rather than a VA one, and it is the route for a veteran whose disability is not service-connected. Both are means tested and both use the same figures. For tax year 2026 the maximum income is $38,470 and the maximum market value on which relief is calculated is $33,600. The income counted is not just the applicant's. It is the income of all owners of the property, the income of the applicant's spouse, and the income of any owner of a remainder or reversion in the property if that property was the person's legal residence at any time during the year. Any portion of social security income, social security equivalent railroad retirement benefits, or veterans entitlements that federal regulations require to be paid to a nursing home for nursing home care is not counted as income for an owner who relocates to a nursing home. The published figures are not the ones in the statute. Sections 67-5-702(a)(2) and 67-5-703(a)(2) say $24,000 of income "or such other amount as set forth in the general appropriations act," adjusted each tax year by the social security cost of living adjustment and rounded to the nearest ten dollars. The market value figure in subdivision (a)(3)(A) reads $27,000, subject to the appropriations act, and subdivision (a)(3)(B) indexes it annually to the consumer price index for all urban consumers, rounded to the nearest hundred dollars, with the annual change floored at zero percent and capped at three percent. That is why the brochure and the code disagree, and the brochure is the one to work from. The disabled veteran program has neither of those mechanics. Its $175,000 is a flat figure in the statute with no appropriations-act escape and no index, which is why it only moves when the General Assembly moves it. Income documentation is required. The Comptroller asks for it from a sole owner within $100 of the income limit, and where there is a co-owner and combined income is within $200 of the limit, for all sources. Public Chapter 1063 of 2026 relaxes that for the elderly program only: an applicant eighty or older who has received relief on the same residence for the five preceding consecutive years, or whose co-owner has, need not be asked to document income, though the application still has to be filed each year on a simplified form. Financial records filed for income verification are confidential under 67-5-701(m). Section 67-5-704(h) means these do not stack with the disabled veteran relief. A veteran eligible for both picks one, and the veteran program covers roughly five times the market value. Both of these programs also carry the health care relocation protection added by Public Chapter 710 of 2018, on the same terms as the veteran program.