100,000 more Pennsylvania seniors received property tax and rent rebates last year

The number of seniors who qualified for Pennsylvania’s property tax and rent rebate grew by more than 100,000 following an increase of the program’s income cap last year.

Gov. Josh Shapiro speaking at a Pittsburgh senior center on Thursday said the long overdue changes made $318 million in tax and rent relief accessible to a broader swath of Pennsylvania residents.

“We heard you in urban and rural and suburban communities saying seniors need a little bit of extra help, a few more bucks in their pocket,” Shapiro said, adding that the expansion was the result of cooperation between Republicans and Democrats in the state legislature. “In this case, as a result of us coming together, seniors were the big beneficiaries.”

Shapiro signed the expansion of the property tax and rent rebate program in August 2023. It was the first time the program had been revised since 2006.

It raises the maximum rebate for seniors from $650 to $1,000, and raises the income cap for renters from $15,000 to $45,000 a year, and for homeowners from $35,000 to $45,000 per year.

The expansion also ties the cap to increases in the cost of living, so that if a senior citizen’s Social Security payment gets a cost-of-living increase, it won’t disqualify them from the PTRR program.

Pennsylvania State Treasurer Stacy Garrity’s office said Wednesday that 97% of those who applied have received their payments from the Treasury. The Department of Revenue is reviewing the remaining applications and those who have applied can track their rebates online.

Shapiro noted Thursday that the application process for 2025 is now open.

Revenue Secretary Pat Browne, who spoke after Shapiro at Vintage Senior Services on Thursday, said the program had about 520,000 claimants in 2024 and the department estimated that about 20,000 low-income seniors who could qualify have not applied.

“We want to make sure that everyone is eligible, steps forward and has an opportunity to apply. So to steal one of the governor’s lines, there’s no wrong door for this,” Browne said,

Pennsylvania residents can apply for the property tax or rent rebate online or in person by making an appointment at a Revenue Department district office or at a state lawmaker’s office. Information about the process and where to apply can be found on the department’s website.

While the expansion was under consideration in the General Assembly, lawmakers said they were seeing a surge in the number of constituents who once qualified for the rebate but no longer received it.

In the nearly two decades since the program’s enabling legislation, the Taxpayer Relief Act, was last overhauled, Social Security and pension cost of living adjustments had put many who relied on the rebates over the program’s income limits.

Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, who served as a state representative for Allegheny County until 2023, that in addition to the state property tax and rent rebate, the county offers a homestead exemption for property taxes on a primary residence and a flat 30% tax discount for low-income seniors who have owned their homes for 10 year or more.

“I think it’s also really important to point out that over the last 10 years, we’ve seen a 10 fold increase in senior citizens using our homeless shelters,” Innamorato said, adding that affordable housing solutions need to consider seniors.

Innamorato said Allegheny County this year will make $2.5 million available for residential repairs, which many low-income seniors struggle to afford. It will also spend $3.5 million to create 150 units of affordable housing.

The revised program rules include a provision to adjust the income caps based on the federal Consumer Price Index to ensure the maximum income for the program does not again become out of line with low-income seniors’ support.

According to the Revenue Department, the number of people who claimed the rebate declined from its most recent peak of just more than 600,000 in 2009 to about 400,000 in 2022. That year, the state paid $192 million in rebates.

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