Talk about a policy change that makes a difference to hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans: More than 550,000 Minnesota households will benefit from improvements to the property tax refund in the tax bill approved in the 2013 Legislative Session.
Our latest analysis goes into the details of those improvements and the number of people who will benefit.
According to 2013 Tax Bill Improves Property Tax Refunds for Renters and Homeowners, the 2013 tax bill increases maximum refunds and lowers the threshold for qualifying for a property tax refund. The result:
- More than 79,000 renting households will see an average $152 increase in their Renters’ Credit refunds.
- More than 309,000 homeowning households will receive an average $221 increase in their refunds.
- Another 30,000 renting households and 112,000 homeowning households are now eligible for a property tax refund.
These changes help ensure that Minnesotans don’t pay too high a share of their incomes in property taxes, and in so doing, they make Minnesota’s tax system more fair.
Increasing reliance on property taxes has contributed to the growing gap between the share of income that most Minnesotans pay in state and local taxes and the smaller share of income paid by the highest-income Minnesotans. The tax bill’s increases in property tax refunds will help narrow that gap.
-Nan Madden