Ohio House Bill HB40

Ohio 2025-2026 Regular Session

• Introduced: 2/3/25

Caption

To amend sections 323.152 and 4503.065 of the Revised Code to increase the enhanced homestead exemption for certain disabled veterans.

Summary

HB40 would expand Ohio’s enhanced homestead-type property tax relief for disabled veterans and their surviving spouses. The bill amends two sections of the Revised Code: section 323.152, which governs the homestead exemption for real property, and section 4503.065, which governs the comparable exemption for manufactured and mobile homes. For disabled veterans, the bill increases the exempted value from which taxes are reduced, using a larger base amount for veterans with total income at or below $125,000 and a smaller base amount for those above that threshold. It also extends the same structure of relief to surviving spouses of disabled veterans, with eligibility tied to the veteran’s death or receipt of a qualifying disability rating, and continues the benefit until the spouse dies or remarries. The bill also preserves and updates the existing income-based and inflation-adjusted framework used for Ohio’s homestead exemptions. It keeps the annual GDP-deflator indexing mechanism for income thresholds and exemption amounts, and it applies the new rules to both real property and manufactured/mobile homes. The bill specifies that the real-property changes apply beginning in tax year 2025, while the manufactured-home changes apply beginning in tax year 2026. It repeals the prior versions of the two statutes and replaces them with revised language that increases the tax reduction available to qualifying disabled veterans and surviving spouses.

Impact

HB40 would directly change Ohio property tax law by increasing the amount of taxable value shielded from taxation for qualifying disabled veterans and by aligning the manufactured-home exemption with the expanded real-property benefit. The bill affects county auditors and tax administrators who process homestead exemption applications, and it would reduce property tax liabilities for eligible homeowners and manufactured-home owners. It also preserves existing limits, such as the one-homestead rule, anti-abuse provisions, and the offset rule for manufactured homes when a homestead exemption on the underlying land already applies.

Sentiment

The bill appears to have a generally supportive policy posture, as reflected by its broad introductory sponsorship and its narrow, targeted purpose of expanding tax relief for disabled veterans. There is no recorded committee testimony or vote history in the provided materials, so there is no evidence of formal opposition or amendment debate at this stage. The framing of the bill suggests it is intended as a veterans’ tax benefit measure rather than a broader tax overhaul.

Contention

The main policy issue embedded in HB40 is cost and eligibility design: it expands a tax exemption, which may reduce local property tax revenue, while using income thresholds to distinguish between higher- and lower-income disabled veterans. Another possible point of contention is the differential treatment between disabled veterans and other homestead-exemption recipients, since the bill creates a larger exemption specifically for veterans and their surviving spouses. The bill also retains anti-fraud and anti-avoidance restrictions, indicating concern that some applicants could attempt to qualify through ownership transfers or improper claims.