More than 134,000 approved for North Dakota's new primary residence credit

(The Center Square) – More than 138,000 North Dakotans applied for the new primary residence credit, and 134,893 applications were approved, Tax Commissioner Brian Kroshus told a legislative committee on Wednesday.

Approved North Dakotans received $500 toward their property tax for their primary residence, which could include houses, condominiums and mobile homes. Taxpayers could only claim one primary residence.

Tax officials estimated that 92% of eligible taxpayers participated after dissecting U.S. Census data that eliminates some housing, including ones on reservations, which are not taxed.

"We dissected in so many different ways, I am very confident in that 90% figure," Kroshus said.

The application was online and took less than five minutes, according to Kroshus.

The tax department also logged more than 24,000 phone calls, he said.

"And the work our team did because as you remember, we didn't add any FTEs, a big shout out to them," Kroshus said, referring to full-time employees. "We did this without adding any staff and they were busy. They worked incredibly hard at this. We received a lot of compliments from the public on this, which was great to hear."

State officials are looking at adding residences that are currently in trusts but are primary residences, Kroshus said in his presentation .

The tax went into effect in April after approval by the North Dakota Legislature during the 2023 session. Lawmakers also passed $358 million in individual income tax relief by eliminating the state's bottom tax bracket and merging the top four brackets into two with reduced rates. Coupled with the primary tax credit, Gov. Doug Burgum said taxpayers received $515 million in tax breaks, the largest in state history.

The majority of approved applications for the primary residence credit were from taxpayers 65 years old and older, with 43,999, according to a presentation by Kroshus. The smallest demographic of approved applications was from taxpayers under the age of 25 years old, with 1,253.