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Senior tax plan favored
By Carole Cloudwalker
This document was published online on Monday, November 19, 2007
Proposed legislation that would offer tax relief to Wyoming homeowners 65 and older has the support of the Park County assessor.
Doug Brandt says the proposal - put forth recently by Gov. Dave Freudenthal as a way to help the state's senior citizens - would be administered by county assessors, to whom the seniors would apply for tax relief.
Brandt said a straw poll of county assessors indicates they favor the plan and approve of tax relief for that targeted audience.
“It's going to be administered out of the assessor's office,” Brandt said. “I think it's great - it seems to target the people who are most concerned.”
That would be the state's older residents, people living on fixed incomes who are faced with frequent property tax hikes, but who have no increasing source of personal revenue.
“For several decades Wyoming governors and legislators have struggled to provide property tax relief, particularly for older citizens wishing to remain in their family homes,” Freudenthal wrote in a letter to the Legislative Management Council. “Many good-faith efforts (to provide tax relief) have simply failed, in large part due to the restrictions in the Wyoming Constitution.”
The governor said it is “time to ask the voters if they want to amend the Constitution to allow future legislators to authorize homeowner tax relief.”
Brandt said the constitutional amendment component sets Freudenthal's proposal apart from others, including the Homeowners Tax Credit, a measure that still exists, but is now unfunded.
Even that legislation could be tweaked, financed and used this year without requiring a constitutional amendment, Brandt said.
But he added that making a constitutional change and implementing the new proposal likely is a good idea because an amendment “cleans up legal issues.”
Freudenthal's proposal, which probably will be introduced in February, does not involve “means testing” (reporting a homeowner's income), Brandt said.
Rather, it requires that a homeowner:
€Have lived in the home in question for at least 10 years.
€Be at least 65 years old.
€Show that the home for which relief is sought is the applicant's primary residence for most of each year.
If those things apply, homeowners of any income level could go to their county assessor to receive the benefit, which would exempt one-half of their home's fair market value from property taxation.
For example, under the proposal, if one of two married people reach age 65, the couple could go to the assessor's office and apply to have their $200,000 home taxed at just $100,000 of valuation.
That would mean a reduction of about $600 in property taxes, based on average statewide mill levies on residential real estate of 67.135 mills.
Assessors would determine eligibility. The state would compensate counties for reduced property tax revenues, which Brandt said could cost Wyoming $15 million-$18 million annually.
But he said the state presently is “flush with cash,” and the legislation allows for reductions in both the percent of discount and other stipulations to cover years when there is less state money available.
Brandt said in Park County there are about 4,200 people who would potentially be eligible for the tax break. Using average mill levy figures, that could involve about $2.9 million in Park County tax revenues.
The county would not be out that amount, however, since the state would reimburse each county for its potential loss of tax income.
“And this goes whether you're rich or poor,” Brandt said/
He added that the most difficult task facing assessors under the proposal would be to determine whether the home for which relief was sought actually was the primary residence of the applicant.
“I think this proposal has merit,” he added. “There certainly are many people talking and pushing for tax relief for certain people.”
He added that from his conversations with other assessors he found that “we (assessors) do support the general concept of tax relief,” adding, “I think this is a well-targeted one.”
He said because voters would be asked to amend the state constitution, the earliest the measure could go before them is 2008.
The constitutional amendment would require approval by both the state Senate and House to go on the ballot.
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Pmc wrote on Dec 2, 2007 6:44 AM: