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Bill Would Provide More Tax Savings For Some Low-Income Ohio Homeowners

By Jo Ingles

Published December 5, 2019 at 8:17 PM EST

Rep. Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) [Jo Ingles] — Rep. Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill)

About 800,000 Ohioans already take advantage of the homestead exemption credit. But a new bill would reduce property taxes even further for low-income and disabled veterans.

As a former Lawrence County Auditor, Republican Rep. Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) often spoke to homeowners who simply couldn't afford to stay in their homes because of their property tax burdens.

“Most people who are eligible for the homestead exemption here in Ohio are homeowners who are on a fixed income. One of the biggest enemies of people who are on a fixed income is inflation," Stephens said.

Now that he's replaced former Ohio House Speaker Ryan Smith (R-Bidwell) as the district's representative in that chamber, Stephens is sponsoring a bill he says will help those seniors by pegging the homestead exemption to inflation.

“The current homestead exemption does not take into consideration the cost of inflation," Stephens says.

Current Ohio law exempts the first $25,000 of a home’s value from property tax – saving people an average of $440 per year.

Stephens’s proposal would increase that amount every year for low-income and disabled veterans, mirroring the rate of inflation with the same methods the state uses for calculating eligibility, he said.

The bill would not restore the homestead exemption for all seniors, Stephens said. Historically, the exemption had been reserved for those seniors with the lowest incomes. But in 2007, then-Gov. Ted Strickland expanded the homestead exemption to all seniors, regardless income. In 2013, Republican Gov. John Kasich signed a law that reverted back to means testing to determine which Ohio seniors could get the tax break. But all seniors, regardless of income, who took advantage of the break up to that point were grandfathered into the exemption.

The new bill would not lower the income threshold for being able to get the exemption, Stephens said.