LB 209 — Change provisions relating to homestead exemptions for certain veterans and a property tax exemption for certain facilities

LB209 LB209 2025 LEGISLATURELEGISLATIVE OFBILL NEBRASKA209 ONEApproved HUNDREDby NINTHthe LEGISLATUREGovernor FIRSTFebruary SESSION25, LEGISLATIVE2025 BILL 209 FINAL READING   Introduced by von Gillern, 4.

Read  firstA timeBILL JanuaryFOR 14,AN 2025ACT Committee:relating to revenue and taxation;

Revenue A BILL FOR AN ACT relating to revenue and taxation;

Be it enacted by the people of the State of Nebraska, -1- LB209 LB209 2025 Section 1.

77-20277-202 (1) (1) The following property shall be exempt from property taxes:

and (ii) Public purpose means use of the property (A) to provide public services with or without cost to the recipient, including the general operation of government, public education, public safety, transportation, public works, civil and criminal justice, public health and welfare, -2- LB209 LB209 2025 developments by a public housing authority, parks, culture, recreation, community development, and cemetery purposes, or (B) to carry out the duties and responsibilities conferred by law with or without consideration.

(d)(i) Property owned by educational, religious, charitable, or cemetery organizations, or any organization for the exclusive benefit of any such educational, religious, charitable, or cemetery organization, -3- LB209 LB209 2025 and used exclusively for educational, religious, charitable, or cemetery purposes, when such property is not (A) owned or used for financial gain or profit to either the owner or user, (B) used for the sale of alcoholic liquors for more than twenty hours per week, or (C) owned or used by an organization which discriminates in membership or employment based on race, color, or national origin.

(A) Educational organization means (I) an institution operated exclusively -1- LB209 LB209 2025 for the purpose of offering regular courses with systematic instruction in academic, vocational, or technical subjects or assisting students through services relating to the origination, processing, or guarantying of federally reinsured student loans for higher education, (II) a museum or historical society operated exclusively for the benefit and education of the public, or (III) a nonprofit organization that owns or operates a child care facility;

Such percentage shall be equal to the average percentage of occupied beds in the facility provided to medicaid beneficiaries over the most recent three-yearthree- year period.

This subdivision shall not be construed to modify, limit, or reduce any property tax exemption provided to a nonprofit skilled nursing facility, -4- LB209 LB209 2025 nonprofit nursing facility, or nonprofit assisted-living facility pursuant to subdivision (1)(d)(i) of this section.

For purposes of this subsection, business inventory includes personal property owned for purposes of leasing or renting such property to others for financial gain only if the personal property is of a type which in the ordinary course of business is leased or rented thirty days or less and may be returned at the option of the lessee or renter at any time and the personal property is of a type which would be considered household goods or personal effects if owned by an -5- LB209 LB209 2025 individual.

(10) Any tangible personal property that is acquired by a person operating a data center located in this state, that is assembled, engineered, processed, fabricated, manufactured into, attached to, or incorporated into other tangible personal property, both in component form or that of an assembled product, for the purpose of subsequent use at a physical location outside this state by the person operating a data -6- LB209 LB209 2025 center shall be exempt from the personal property tax.

For purposes of this subsection, data center means computers, supporting equipment, and other organized assembly of hardware or software that are designed to -2- LB209 LB209 2025 centralize the storage, management, or dissemination of data and information, environmentally controlled structures or facilities or interrelated structures or facilities that provide the infrastructure for housing the equipment, such as raised flooring, electricity supply, communication and data lines, Internet access, cooling, security, and fire suppression, and any building housing the foregoing.

or (ii) Deployed in a qualified census tract located within the corporate limits of a city of the metropolitan class and being utilized to provide end-usersend- users with access to the Internet at speeds of at least one hundred megabits per second for downloading and at least one hundred megabits per second for uploading.

(b) An owner of broadband equipment seeking an exemption under this -7- LB209 LB209 2025 section shall apply for an exemption to the county assessor on or before December 31 of the year preceding the year for which the exemption is to begin.

and (iii) Qualified census tract means a qualified census tract as defined in 26 U.S.C.

Section 77-3506, Revised Statutes Cumulative Supplement, -8- LB209 LB209 2025 2024, is amended to read:

(d) An unremarried surviving spouse of any veteran, including a veteran other than a veteran described in section 80-401.01, who was discharged or otherwise separated with a characterization of honorable or general (under honorable conditions) and who died because of a service-service-connected connected disability or a surviving spouse of such a veteran who remarries after attaining the age of fifty-seven years;

-9--3- LB209 LB209 2025 (e) An unremarried surviving spouse of a serviceman or servicewoman, including a veteran other than a veteran described in section 80-401.01, whose death while on active duty was service-connected or a surviving spouse of such a serviceman or servicewoman who remarries after attaining the age of fifty-sevenfifty- seven years;

Application for exemption under subdivision (2)(b), (c), (d), (e), or (f) of this section shall be required annually and shall include certification of the status described in subdivision (2)(2)(b), (b), (c), (d), (e), or (f) of this section from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, except that such certification of status shall only be required in every subsequent year evenly divisible by five.

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