Holiday Season Spotlights Property Tax Savings’ Programs
By Jeff Prang
Los Angeles County Assessor
As we move forward into this holiday season I wanted to remind your readers of the property tax savings’ programs that my office has available for qualified recipients. I know this is not exactly an exciting topic and I have shared these with you before in earlier columns but saving money is always a good thing and I believe it’s worth repeating.
In fact, last year my office provided taxpayers with more than $800 million in savings through various exemptions and exclusions.
Let’s start with the easiest to access: the Homeowners’ Exemption (HOX) is available to anyone who owns their home and who occupies it as their principle residence as of January 1. It reduces your assessed value by $7,000, which will save you about $70 of your property tax bill every year.
To say this is an easy way to save money is an understatement, but nearly one in three
homeowners in Los Angeles County do not take advantage of this tax savings program, leaving about $30 million, give or take, unclaimed each year. Across the County, an additional 435,000 families can be saving on their tax bills.
What about property tax savings for disabled veterans? The Disable Veterans’ Property Tax
Exemption is for disable veterans blind in both eyes; with the loss of the use of two or more limbs; or when totally disabled as a result of injury or disease incurred while in active military service. Unmarried surviving spouses of certain deceased veterans may also qualify. The Low- Income Disabled Veterans’ Exemption provides additional savings if a disabled veteran (meeting above requirements) also meets low-income requirements.
To be eligible for the exemption, a veteran must have been injured during their military service.
As such, the disability rating must be issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Ratings
from personal physicians are not accepted. Although there is no time limit on filing, only up to eight years is retroactively refundable and it starts from the effective date of the disability rating.
To receive the full savings, it must be filed by February 15.
There are two levels of this exemption: the basic exemption and the low-income exemption. The basic exemption, also known as the $100,000 exemption, is available to all qualifying claimants.
The exemption amount is compounded annually by an inflation factor. For 2024, the basic
exemption amount is $169,769, which results in about $1,700 off their property tax bill.
The low-income exemption, also referred to as the $150,000 exemption, is available to
qualifying claimants whose annual household income does not exceed a specified income limit.
The amounts for both the low-income exemption and the annual income limit are compounded annually by an inflation factor. For 2024, the low-income exemption amount is $254,656 and the annual household income limit is $76,235. That translates to about $2,500 off their property tax bill.
There’s also disaster relief available through filing the Misfortune or Calamity application.
Property that is damaged by a disaster, such as fire, flood or earthquake, or other calamity, which may include civil unrest, may qualify for a temporary reduction in taxable value. Physical damage to the property must be valued at least $10,000.
Then there’s the Decline-in-Value (also known as DIV or Prop 8), which allows for a temporary reduction in a property’s assessed value. This occurs when the current market value of a property is less than the assessed base-year value as of January 1. A DIV review may be requested through the Assessor’s Office and can be made online.
If you are a homeowner who is over 55, severely disabled or the victim of a natural disaster, you may be eligible to transfer your property tax base when you sell your home and buy a new one.
This also allows qualified homeowners to buy a home anywhere in the state, it allows the
transfer of the property tax base up to three times, and it allows you to transfer the tax base to a home of any value.
Although laws do change and are altered from year to year and this may be outside the exact scope of my Office, there’s also ways to save when protecting the environment.
As an example, the initial purchaser of a building with an active solar energy system may qualify for an exclusion from assessment on that portion of the value attributable to the system. When adding a solar energy system to your current home, the new system is automatically excluded from assessment.
In June 2018, Proposition 72 was approved by California voters to exclude rainwater capture systems from assessments. Thanks to this measure, the initial purchaser of a property with a rainwater capture system may be eligible for an exclusion of the rainwater capture system assessment. When adding a rainwater capture system to your current home, the new system will be automatically excluded from your property’s assessment.
For more information about these programs and the actual dollar savings available for each one, please go to our new and improved website at assessor.lacounty.gov.
As we close out 2024, I want to wish everyone a happy Holiday Season as well as a safe and prosperous New Year.
