The first of five local property tax cutoffs for older homeowners lands Dec. 1, when West Virginia’s window for a $20,000 homestead exemption closes. Michigan’s Ann Arbor follows with a Dec. 14 poverty-exemption deadline, then New York’s Town of Conklin and Florida’s Pinellas County on March 1 and Pawtucket, Rhode Island, on March 15. Each date comes from a county, town or city office, and none of them binds the next county over.
That makes this a calendar problem as much as a money one. A West Virginia homeowner has to be 65 by June 30 of the following year to file now, a Pawtucket homeowner has to be 65 already, and Ann Arbor’s exemption lasts a single year before it must be renewed…