BOS approves homestead exemption clarification for disabled veterans

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At Monday’s Board of Supervisors Meeting, Tax Assessor Ben Luckett brought forward a motion to have a certain homestead policy corrected to better fit the intent of State law, also benefitting home-owning disabled veterans. The statute in question comes from Mississippi Senate Bill 2700 on homestead exemptions for Veterans.

“Me and Blake [Teller] have researched the law,” said Lucket, “We feel like the law was meant that if you have owned your house January 1st, and you became eligible for your DAV [Disabled Veteran status] at any point in the year you can come apply.”

When asked for more clarification, Board Attorney Blake Teller explained, “There’s a new statute within the last year or two that allows a DAV to get their homestead by filing for homestead exemption any time of the year, whereas the old rule was by the deadline in April for anybody who buys a house in the previous year to get homestead, but they had to file before April X.”

Concerning how this affects veterans, Teller explained, “This just broadened the ability of a disabled vet to file. If they miss that April deadline, they’re okay, file later in the year, they’re okay, as long as they owned their house on January 1.”

According to Teller, some counties are interpreting the law to mean you don’t even have to own your house on January 1, you can buy it any time and get backdated home exemptions.

“We don’t think that’s an accurate interpretation of the law because if you did it that way, you’d have chaos in the tax records,” said Teller.

The corrections were accepted unanimously by the Board.