Minnesota Property Tax Refund and Household Income
This entry was posted on 2/19/2008 10:06 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
The State of Minnesota offers a Property Tax Refund for individual filers. It is based on Household income and the amount of property taxes paid by a homeowner, or in the case of renters, the amount of deemed property taxes paid through their rent.
Some people with middle and higher incomes do not qualify for the refund as it is progressive. The more Household income one has the greater the chance that they will not get a property tax refund. Household income is similar to one's Adjusted Gross Income, but there can be adjustments to it.
An important adjustment to it can be when two or more unmarried people share the same household. In some cases, the income from this other person or people should be combined with the filers income, to arrive at Household income for the Property Tax Refund. The rules for when to do this are found here:
http://www.taxes.state.mn.us/taxes/prop_refund/instructions/m1pr_inst_07.pdfIt is this accountant's wish that the rules were a little more helpful.
I have seen a Minnesota Revenue auditor claiming that they have information that another party lives with a Property Tax Refund filer. I would assume, they use a data base of all returns filed and look for matching addresses. They then might attempt to question a Property Tax Refund's legitimacy by arguing that the Household income was under-reported. I would advise property tax refund filers who live with others, to review the Household income rules.
