Like all Minnesotans, Minnesota’s renters want safe, affordable homes for themselves and their families. But some Minnesotans earning low wages or on fixed incomes struggle to afford the cost of housing and other basic necessities. By providing property tax refunds to qualifying homeowners and renters, the state of Minnesota helps bring down one of the costs of housing and creates a more equitable tax system overall.
The property tax refund for renters is often called the Renters’ Credit.[1] The Renters’ Credit provides a tax refund to low- and moderate-income renters whose property taxes are considered high for their income level. The Renters’ Credit refunds a portion of the property taxes that renters have paid through their rents. Qualifying households had incomes of $59,960 or less; the credit is particularly targeted to the state’s lowest-income households, and a substantial majority of households receiving the credit have incomes of about $30,500 or less.
For the 2016 tax year, about 325,000 Minnesota households received the Renters’ Credit, and the average amount of credit received was $653.[2] Twenty-nine percent of the households receiving the Renters’ Credit included senior citizens and/or people living with disabilities; they received a larger average credit of $723. The share of participating households that include seniors or people living with disabilities tends to be higher in Greater Minnesota. In fact, in 13 Greater Minnesota counties, at least one-half of participating households included seniors and/or persons living with disabilities.[3]
Minnesotans in every county receive the Renters’ Credit.
The full version of this issue brief includes a table of data on the impact of the Renters’ Credit in each Minnesota county and for the state as a whole.
By Nan Madden and Abimael Chavez-Hernandez