Bill to Help Seniors with Property Taxes Introduced by County Council
The Montgomery County Council introduced a bill that would provide seniors with tax relief and assist them with meeting their property tax obligations to the County.
According to a news release, the Expedited Bill 10-16 would allow seniors aged 65 and older, with an individual or combined income of $80,000 or less to defer increases on property taxes on their principal residence until they can sell their home. Interest on the deferred taxes would accrue at 0 percent. The news release states that $80,000 is the senior median income in Montgomery County, and the eligibility for the proposed measure would impact half of senior households in they County.
The lead sponsors of the bill are Council Vice President Roger Berliner, Councilmember Sidney Katz, and Councilmember Hans Riemer.
“The County Executive has asked our Council to significantly increase property taxes, a request that my colleagues and I will be grappling with over the course of the next several weeks,” Berliner said. “But we know that most seniors live on fixed incomes and they worry that property tax increases will force them out of their homes and out of the County. We want our seniors, the fastest growing demographic in our County, to be able to stay in their homes as long as possible. This legislation would promote that goal by giving seniors the option to defer increases on property taxes until they sell their home,” he said.
“Many seniors are disproportionately affected by the current tax structure,” Katz said. “This legislation is one way to address this and help our seniors to be able to continue to enjoy their home,” he said.
“Because seniors are an important part of a thriving and diverse community, we should strive to find ways to help seniors age in place. I am very happy to join in proposing this legislation today, just as I was pleased to work with my colleagues to increase the Senior Property Tax Credit in 2012,” Riemer said
Council President Nancy Floreen, and Councilmembers Marc Elrich, Nancy Navarro, and Craig Rice co-sponsored the bill.
For more details on the bill, visit the Montgomery County Council website.
The legislation is a band-aid to cover for the Executive’s consistent, economically backwards tax policy that has led to an increase in property taxes 7 of the last 9 years. Enough gimmicks. All this does is defer the tax hikes to the next generation. Will the next generation of MoCo seniors get this kind of generous tax break? Isn’t this what Democrats rail against every time reforms to social security are brought up – that is isn’t fair to the next generation of people paying in?
Everyone, seniors included, should be paying less in taxes. This is already one of the most heavily taxed counties in America. It hasn’t worked. Ike-onomics haven’t worked and instead, we have more debt, more deficits and more boondoggles (Silver Spring Transit Center) then ever before.