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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2017 - 2018
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | June 29, 2017 04:34 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Steve Samuelson |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Increase in Property Tax and Rent Rebate Exemption (former HB 421) |
| In the near future, I plan to reintroduce legislation (former HB 421) amending the Taxpayer Relief Act of 2006 to increase the exemption for life insurance benefits from $5,000 to $10,000 when calculating income eligibility for the Property Tax/Rent Rebate (PTRR) program. This $5,000 exemption was established more than 40 years ago when the average cost of a funeral was approximately $983. Since then, that average has increased more than six-fold to approximately $6,500, not including the cost of a burial site or monument. Many senior citizens utilize a modest life insurance payment upon the death of a loved one to cover funeral costs and other expenses. As you can see, it would take a policy in excess of $5,000 to cover those costs. However, with the existing exemption in the PTRR program, any life insurance payment over $5,000 would count towards a person's income and could put a surviving spouse over the PTRR income limit in the year that the life insurance payment was received. This bill would increase the PTRR death benefit exemption from $5,000 to $10,000. Act 27 of 2003 increased the life insurance exemption for the PACE program from $5,000 to $10,000. According to the Department of Aging, between 3,000 and 5,000 PACE enrollees benefited from that change. I hope you join me in supporting this important piece of legislation. Previous cosponsors of HB 421 of 2015-16 were: Hennessey, Barbin, Bishop, Bizzarro, Boback, V. Brown, Brownlee, Caltagirone, Carroll, Cohen, D. Costa, Davidson, Davis, DeLissio, DeLuca, Diamond, Driscoll, Dush, Farina, Flynn, Frankel, Freeman, Gainey, Gergely, Gibbons, Gingrich, Goodman, Hanna, Harhai, Harkins, Harper, James, Kauffman, Kim, Kinsey, Kortz, Longietti, Mahoney, Matzie, McCarter, McNeill, Mullery, Murt, Neilson, O’Brien, C. Parker, Pashinski, M. Quinn, Ravenstahl, Readshaw, Rozzi, Sabatina, Santarsiero, Schlossberg, Schreiber, Schweyer, Snyder, Sonney, Thomas, Toohil, Watson and Youngblood. |
Introduced as HB1660