Benefits for Hamden Seniors

hamden
November 12, 2021
In my continued fight to advocate on behalf of senior citizens I wanted to share a detailed breakdown of legislation we passed that will directly affect you. When drafting and voting on this legislation, our focus was to better the lives of seniors throughout the Hamden community and our state. According to town data, the programs detailed below, will benefit approximately 750 Hamden senior households.
Property Tax Relief Expanded
General Breakdown
 
HB 6458, An Act Lowering the Age of Eligibility for Property Tax Relief for Senior Citizens and Establishing a Task Force to Protect Senior Citizens from Fraud, gives towns the ability to lower the age to 65 to provide property tax relief for seniors and as described, creates a task force to prevent fraud targeted at seniors.
Detailed Breakdown for Hamden
 
State law provides a property tax credit program for Connecticut owners in residence of real property, who are elderly (65 and over) or totally disabled, and whose annual incomes do not exceed certain limits. The credit amount is calculated by the local assessor and applied by the tax collector to the applicant's real property tax bill.

The amount of the credit that the state provides for is up to $1,250 for married couples and $1,000 for single persons. Credit amounts are based on a graduated income scale. However, Hamden has decided to go above that amount and offers a credit of up to $2,950 for those single and married for those earning up to $36,000 and up to $1,950 for those earning up to $43,900.
Applications may be made with the Assessor's Office between February 1 and May 15th.
 
If you believe you are eligible, we are told that you can go the Hamden Tax Office website when you go to pay your property taxes and this information will be available to you as you file. Or you can call the Hamden Tax Office at 203-287-7140.
Phasing Out the Income Tax on Pensions and Annuities
General Breakdown
 
HB 6689, An Act Concerning the State Budget, continues to phase out the state income tax on pensions and annuities - exempting an additional 28% over the next 2 years, which will exempt in total 70% of this income from state taxes for most seniors.
Detailed Breakdown for Hamden
 
The percentage of Social Security, pension and annuity retirement income you do not have to pay state income tax increases over time. For the 2021 tax year it is 42% and for 2022, 56%. The percentage will continue to increase to 100%.
 
Taxpayers qualify for this exemption only if their federal adjusted gross income is below (1) $75,000 for single filers, married people filing separately, or heads of households or (2) $100,000 for married people filing jointly.

This legislature did pass a bill to phase out the income tax on certain taxpayers’ distributions from IRAs, other than Roth IRAs, over four years beginning with the 2023 tax year. The qualifying income limits above also apply here.  The bill exempts an increasing portion of IRA income until the income is fully exempt in the 2026 tax year.
 
For the 2026 tax year and thereafter, Connecticut will neither tax Social Security, pension and annuity retirement income, nor income from most IRAs.
Long-Term Care Insurance
General Breakdown
 
SB 1046, An Act Concerning Long Term Care Insurance, puts in place strong consumer protections on long-term care insurance to prevent significant, unexpected rate increases and ensures more affordable products are available.
Detailed Breakdown for Hamden
 
Any rate increase for a long-term care insurance policy must be approved by the Department of Insurance and be placed upon an rate increase agenda, which you can access here.
 
Many increases are rejected for being too high, but many still get approved. We are told by the Department that an increased rate must be tied to a demonstrated increase in morbidity, risk or cost. Also, as more people drop-out, or are priced out of their group for LTC insurance the remaining clients sadly must make up the cost. Unfortunately, if approved the only option to defray some of the cost increase is to make individual changes to your individual policy benefit options.
 
Hearing from many constituents, last session we were able to pass Public Act 21-150 An Act Concerning Long Term Care Insurance. This new law requires the insurance commissioner to develop a minimum set of affordable benefit options that insurers must offer to policyholders if they file a premium rate increase of 20% or more for an individual or group LTC policy. The bill also prohibits them from filing an additional rate increase during this period. The law goes into effect January 1, 2022.
 
Because this continues to be a problem this upcoming session we can once again explore legislation giving the Attorney General this power and close of the loophole of spreading out increases over 3 years and by setting just a single year limit on increases.
I will continue to work cohesively with the town of Hamden to protect and advocate for our community's seniors and will keep you posted on any upcoming agendas for the 2022 Legislative Session.