West Springfield Veterans’ Property Tax Exemptions (Clauses 22 to 22F)

The Town of West Springfield 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’ “Info for Exemptions FY2024”, the latest sheet in its Exemptions folder, gives the veteran exemption as “Disabled (10% or greater), Purple Heart, Surviving Spouse. $400 up to Full Exemption depending on qualifications”: the statute’s $400 under clause 22, with the full exemptions under 22D and 22F at the top. The same sheet gives $500 for the blind and $175 for seniors 70 and over and surviving spouses, the statute’s amounts, and no local option is named; the town’s site serves its deep pages only through a browser, so the sheet was read from the assessors’ Google Drive folder the page links. The same sheet records that anyone granted a real estate tax exemption in the previous fiscal year is also eligible for a 10 per cent discount on the water rate, applied automatically from the following July 1. The discount is the town’s own; the sheet names no statute for it, and none was found. Chapter 115 benefits, the Commonwealth’s needs-based help with rent, food, fuel and medical costs, are applied for through West Springfield 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.