Legislative report August  2023

Your legislative committee continues to work with the focus to "keep what we have!” mentality. The last two years as most are aware the legislation passed was positively historical for the veterans and their families of Illinois. 

The two main acts were the Military Veterans Assistance Acts amendments, which enabled the Veterans Assistance Commissions to be properly funded and also to mandate that they have accredited Veterans Service Officers.

The other was the amendment to the Veterans Homestead tax relief act to enable surviving spouses that were not eligible before to now take advantage of this benefit if their departed spouse was had a service connected death or was 100% disabled for 10 years.

The St. Clair county assessor took advantage of a loop hole in the act to deny hundreds of veterans of this benefit. It has since been remedied by other legislation, unfortunately this year these veterans and their families shall suffer.

We have had a report that we feel is flawed on the Veterans Homestead tax relief Act from the department of revenue. see report There was also a follow up in one of the more prominent newspapers read here. The Legislative committee has replied see letter and is still taking steps to safeguard this important benefit that affects over 50,000 Illinois veterans. 24 July Submitted a request to the AG Kwame Raoul for development of a written response to the DOR’s Veterans Property Tax Study released by Director David Harris on 12 June 2023.

We have added a new member of our legislative team Doug Jameson he shall focus on the VAC's throughout the state. There are times where the responsibilities overlap between legislation and VAC's. Your committee is fine tuning our procedures and remedies to sometimes very complex issues.

We approached AG with this issue (below) and an opinion if actions of cook county are illegal. Brought to light by Niles post 3579, it appears that the Cook County Assessor's Office in Chicago no longer accepts PTAX-763 forms. This will have serious implications on Post Homes. We are also looking at how taxes effect our post that have homes.

We also are still working with the VACCC to insure they are properly funded for 2024 and beyond it is a work still in process but are confident that we shall be successful in properly servicing the 170,000 to 250,000 Cook County Veterans.

We also have other bills being passed and in the works refer to https://vfwil.org/di/vfw/v2/default.asp?pid=28609&d=y&subid=69860

V/R Dutch DeGroot

Please see our legislative updates click here

Assistant Chairmen Department Legislative Committee

Jay Davis

Jay Hoffman

Doug Jameson

Mike Peck