Wisconsin Property Tax Credit for Surviving Spouses

Section 71.07(6e) carries the full property tax credit to an unremarried surviving spouse, and it does so four different ways. All four require that the spouse not have remarried and that the Department of Veterans Affairs verify the underlying facts. The first route is death on active duty. The individual served on active duty in the U.S. armed forces or in forces incorporated as part of them, was a Wisconsin resident at entry into that service or had been a resident for any consecutive five-year period after entry, and, while a Wisconsin resident, died while on active duty. Note what is absent: no rating, no disability, and no requirement that the death be service-connected in the VA sense. The second route is the rating route. The individual served under honorable conditions, satisfied the same residency test, was a Wisconsin resident at the time of death, and had either a 100 percent service-connected rating under 38 USC 1114 or 1134 or a 100 percent rating based on individual unemployability. This is the route for the spouse of a veteran who held the credit in life. The third route reaches the National Guard and the reserves. The individual served in the national guard or a reserve component, satisfied the residency test, and, while a Wisconsin resident, died in the line of duty while on active or inactive duty for training purposes. Inactive duty for training means a drill weekend. A Guard member who dies at drill leaves a spouse with this credit, which is a result most states do not reach at all. The fourth route is the widest and the least known. The individual served on active duty under honorable conditions, satisfied the residency test, was a Wisconsin resident at the time of death, and following the death the spouse began to receive, and continues to receive, Dependency and Indemnity Compensation. DIC is itself awarded where death was service-connected or where the veteran was totally disabled for a qualifying period, so this route lets the federal determination do the work. A spouse already receiving DIC should read this route first, because it asks nothing about the rating the veteran held. The credit is the same as the veteran's: the entire property tax on the surviving spouse's principal dwelling in Wisconsin, refundable, with no cap. The same exclusions apply, and the same bar on claiming the homestead credit for the same year. Remarriage ends it. The statute defines the claimant as an unremarried surviving spouse, and the word does continuing work rather than describing status at a single moment. One practical point. Because the fourth route turns on continuing receipt of DIC, a surviving spouse whose DIC stops for any reason should expect the credit to stop with it, and a spouse whose DIC is granted years after the death should revisit the credit at that point rather than assuming the earlier refusal was final.