Voters could expand property tax exemption for veterans

DENVER (KDVR) — FOX31 is your local election headquarters. Ballots are set to be mailed out starting next week in Colorado. One statewide ballot question looks to expand an exemption for some veterans.

Should more disabled veterans qualify for a break on property taxes? Voters will decide soon when they weigh in on Amendment G.

“Once you can explain it to people, it’s very easy,” said veteran and State Representative Bob Marshall.

“I served 28 years in the Marine Corp., 20 years active duty. It was kind of an eclectic career, I actually have six DD214s because I kept getting pulled back in,” Marshall explained. “I had a background in veteran issues because I worked at the Wounded Warrior Battalion for several years doing disability work.”

Last year, he sponsored a resolution, seeking voter approval to make a change to Colorado’s Homestead Exemption for veterans with disabilities.

“Colorado’s veteran homestead exemption requires you to have 100 percent rating from the V.A. The I.U. designation, the individual employability one, that’s when a veteran has a medical condition that is so severe, they cannot work. And they’ll usually spend five to six years trying to hold gainful employment and they can’t do it so it’s like SSDI-level disability,” said Marshall.

If enough voters approve, the exemption would include veterans who have qualified for unemployability: demonstrating they are unable to keep a steady job due to one service-related disability, rendering them 60 percent disabled or 70 percent disabled if they have more than one disability. Under the exemption, 50 percent of the first $200,000 of their home’s value would be exempted from taxation. It is estimated that about 3700 veterans in the state would benefit from the proposed change. Marshall said he sees passing the measure as a way of including a group that should not have been left out of receiving the cut.

“The biggest group often gets the biggest share. So sometimes we leave out the people that are most in need of it. That kind of always irks me because it’s all the healthy guys that can still carry their packs getting on the truck and taking off down the road while the wound and injured are on the side. So that always rubs me the wrong way,” Marshall said.

This measure would amend the state’s constitution, so it needs 55 percent approval in order to pass. The proposal cleared both chambers unanimously when it was at the state capitol.

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