Stephens Bill Would Protect Pocketbooks of Seniors, Veterans

COLUMBUS – State Representative Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) today unveiled a bill to better protect the pocketbooks of low income seniors and disabled veterans by improving the state’s homestead exemption law.

Stephens’s plan would protect qualifying seniors and veterans from inflationary increases in property taxes by indexing the Ohio’s homestead exemption to inflation.

Ohio’s current homestead exemption reduces the property tax of qualifying seniors, for example, by exempting from property taxes the first $25,000 of market value of their homes. In other words, a home with a market value of $60,000 is taxed as though its value is $25,000 less or $35,000.

The problem, Stephens said, is that because of inflation, low income seniors and disabled veterans pay more each year.

Stephens’s bill completely supports Ohio’s homestead exemption, and improves the process of the exemption through indexing homestead exemptions for inflation.

“The homestead exemption inflation adjustment bill not only will benefit low income seniors and disabled veterans, but will do so without effecting the funding of our schools and local government,” said Stephens, a former Lawrence County auditor and commissioner.

Through this legislation Stephens is looking out for homeowners who benefit from the exemption, but who also live on a fixed income.

“One of the biggest enemies of those who live off of a fixed income is inflation,” said Stephens. “This bill will help them fight the impact of inflation on their property taxes.”

Over 800,000 Ohio homeowners take advantage of the homestead exemption each year. These homeowners also save more than $500 in property taxes each year, all thanks to the homestead exemption.

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For more information, contact Rep. Stephens’s office at 614-466-1366 or rep93@ohiohouse.gov