USVI Permanent and Total Disability Property Tax Exemption

The Office of Veterans Affairs states this benefit in one sentence in its summary of local benefits dated March 14, 2025: "Any Veteran of the Armed Services of the United States who has a service-related disability rating determined by the U.S. Veterans Administration entitling them to receive compensation for permanent and total disability is exempt from the payment of all real property taxes levied by the Tax Assessor against the disabled Veteran's homestead." All real property taxes, not a credit and not a capped exemption. It is by a wide margin the largest territorial benefit the Virgin Islands offers, and it is worth many times the $650 veteran homestead credit that is the other property tax benefit here. The test is entitlement to compensation for permanent and total disability, which is a VA status rather than a bare percentage. A veteran rated one hundred percent but not permanent and total, and a veteran paid at the total rate through individual unemployability, should both ask the Office of Veterans Affairs in writing how it reads the phrase for this exemption, because the answer decides a whole tax bill. VetTOC enforces permanent and total as a gate: if you tell it permanent and total status is no, this entry drops off a filtered list; if you leave that field unset, it stays, because the gate is unknown. The office groups this with benefits for veterans residing in the U.S. Virgin Islands rather than with the narrower list for Virgin Islands Veterans, so a veteran who moved to the territory after service is within it. Process follows the same route as the homestead credit. Policy Letter 6 requires a veteran seeking Virgin Islands homestead tax exemptions to contact the Office of Veterans Affairs for a Veteran Tax Exemption Eligibility Form signed by the Director or a representative, and the Office of the Lieutenant Governor's Real Property Tax Division and Tax Assessor administer the bill. The homestead application form is due by March 1 and requires permanent residency in the territory on January 1, and there is no reason to expect this exemption to run on a different calendar; confirm both dates with the Tax Assessor. Two cautions. The territory's own published statements of this benefit are agency summaries and a policy letter rather than a quoted code section, so ask the Tax Assessor for the statutory citation it applies before relying on an amount. And the benefit attaches to the homestead, so it follows the same principal residence, one property and occupancy rules the homestead credit does. A surviving spouse is not mentioned in the office's statement of this exemption, unlike the $650 credit, which expressly reaches the widow or widower of a veteran. If you are the surviving spouse of a permanently and totally disabled veteran, that difference is the first question to put to the office.