Revenue committee reviews recent property-tax legislation, votes to draft owner-occupancy change and remove long-term-home exemption sunset

At a meeting in Gillette on June 2, 2025, the Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Revenue Committee reviewed recent property-tax legislation and instructed staff to draft changes to implementation rules for recent homeowner exemptions.

Josh Anderson, senior analyst with the Legislative Service Office, told the committee that the panel’s work on residential property tax “really started in the 2021 interim,” and then summarized scores of bills passed or considered since then, including the constitutional change creating a separate residential property class (Senate Joint Resolution 3, adopted as Amendment A), a long-term homeowner exemption enacted in 2024, and the homeowner exemption enacted as Senate File 69 in 2025.

The request to draft a change came after members raised concerns about an owner-occupancy verification in Senate File 69. Representative Scott Brown moved and Representative Lien seconded a request that LSO draft language removing the statute’s eight-month owner-occupancy certification; the committee voted in favor and instructed LSO to prepare draft bill language for a future meeting. The committee separately voted to remove the sunset date from the long-term-homeowners exemption enacted in 2024 so it will not expire as originally written.

Why it matters: The package of laws adopted since 2023 includes multiple, layered exemptions and caps that materially change how residential property is assessed and taxed in Wyoming. Those changes alter assessed values available to counties, school districts and special districts and have prompted county officials and assessors to seek clarification on administration, timing and fiscal impacts.

Most important details

- Legislative history and statutes: Anderson and Dalton Quilty of LSO reviewed recent enactments: the constitutional amendment separating residential property into its own class (2023 SJR 3, Amendment A), the 2024 long-term-homeowner exemption (2024 Session Laws, ch. 106), updates to the property-tax refund program (2024 Session Laws, ch. 109), the residential 4% cap (2024 Session Laws, ch. 107), and the 2025 homeowner exemption (2025 Session Laws, ch. 106 / Senate File 69). Quilty summarized technical changes, effective years and the sequencing in which exemptions are applied.

- Committee direction and votes: After discussion of implementation mechanics and potential overlap with a citizen ballot initiative, the committee asked LSO to draft statutory language to remove the eight-month owner-occupancy certification in SF 69 and voted to ask LSO to prepare a bill removing the sunset date for the 50% long-term-homeowner exemption. Both motions passed on committee votes and will return as draft language at a subsequent meeting.

- Implementation questions: Committee members pressed staff and Department of Revenue officials on how the owner-occupancy requirement would be verified and administered. Anderson said the department would likely need an application process to administer an eight-month residency requirement; Ken Gill, property tax administrator for the Wyoming Department of Revenue, told the committee the department has a web application ready to collect owner-occupancy attestations and to pass validated records to county assessors for processing.

- Fiscal and timing notes: Quilty and department staff emphasized that some changes take effect immediately for tax year calculations and that other changes phase in (for example, SF 69 applies broadly in fiscal year 2026 then narrows to owner-occupied dwellings in 2027). Quilty noted the long-term-homeowner exemption includes a July 1, 2027 sunset that the committee voted to remove. The committee asked LSO and DOR to supply updated fiscal estimates at a follow-up meeting.

Context and background

The committee’s discussion reviewed a string of legislative actions dating to the 2021 interim. Those measures include: the constitutional amendment (Amendment A) creating a separate residential class and authorizing a different assessment rate for residential property; the long-term-homeowner exemption (50% assessed-value exemption for qualifying owners enacted in 2024); the 4% cap on year-to-year assessed-value increases for single-family residential structures (often referred to as the “4% cap” and enacted in 2024); expansion and technical changes to the property tax refund program; and the 2025 homeowner exemption (Senate File 69), which provides a 25% exemption on the first $1,000,000 of fair market value for qualifying residential property and includes the contested eight-month owner-occupancy provision.

Committee next steps

The committee requested that LSO produce draft bill language removing the eight-month owner-occupancy verification from SF 69 and that LSO prepare a bill removing the sunset date for the 2024 long-term-homeowner exemption. Department of Revenue staff also agreed to provide more detailed fiscal and application data at an upcoming meeting so the committee can weigh implementation details before the 2026 tax year.

Ending

The committee scheduled follow-up work on the draft language and fiscal estimates and will consider the LSO drafts and DOR follow-ups at its next meeting.