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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2023 - 2024
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | October 20, 2023 03:10 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Joe Ciresi and Rep. Steve Samuelson |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Increasing the PTRR Death Benefit Exclusion |
| When a loved one passes away, a death benefit payment can provide critical financial support to their family, helping offset funeral costs, afford necessary life expenses, and more. For the many Pennsylvania seniors and individuals with disabilities who rely on the Property Tax/Rent Rebate program for their property tax and housing expenses each year, that death benefit payment can also mean temporarily losing eligibility for this valuable relief. While there is an exclusion for some death benefit payments from eligibility income for the program, that amount has remained the same for half a century. The average cost of a funeral now is seven times more than it was back when that amount was set. The exclusion in the PTRR is overdue for an update. The Property Tax/Rent Rebate program has had the same $5,000 exclusion for death benefit payments since 1973, and it was carried over to the PACE/PACENET program when it was created with the same definition of income in 1983. But while the legislature recognized this amount was no longer sufficient due to inflation by raising this exclusion to $10,000 in 2003 for the PACE/PACENET program, helping thousands of enrollees, the same was never done for the PTRR. Our legislation would restore consistency between the two programs and provide relief for our seniors in their time of loss by expanding the death benefit exclusion for Property Tax/Rent Rebate eligibility income to $10,000. Please join us in co-sponsoring this important legislation to help our seniors by keeping more of them eligible for this important program. |
Introduced as HB1861