TALLADEGA COUNTY — Many in the area may not know about a property tax exemption available to permanently disabled citizens and some senior citizens in Alabama.

Lynette Dunklin, deputy revenue commissioner for Talladega County, said people over the age of 65 with an income under $7,500 are eligible to be totally exempt from paying property taxes.

People over 65 with a higher income could be eligible to have part of their state property taxes taken off, Dunklin said. This exemption only includes the property on which the taxpayer’s home is located.

For people who are permanently disabled, they can be totally exempt from homestead property taxes. “This is not even based on income,” Dunklin said.

To see if you are eligible, Dunklin said you can pick up the necessary paperwork to apply from the revenue commissioner’s office.

“If you want to sign up, you have to get in the information by Dec. 31,” Dunklin said. That will get you eligible for the exemption on your 2009 taxes. It is already too late for your 2008 taxes.

Both senior citizens and permanently disabled citizens have to submit a card for the exemption every year afterward.

Dunklin said the disabled homestead exemption law without income restrictions is relatively new. She estimated it had been enacted in the past few years.

Mary Garrett, a Talladega resident who is blind, said she wishes she had known about the exemption earlier. She found out about the exemption through word of mouth.

The revenue commissioner’s office provides a free pamphlet on the office’s counter alerting residents to the exemption, but the pamphlet is not available in Braille.

“I’m legally blind, and I read Braille. That’s my main mode of communication,” Garrett said.

Garrett said she wants to see if she can get a refund for the previous years she paid her homestead property taxes because she had no way of knowing about it.

Dunklin said refunds from previous years are only available if the revenue commissioner’s office made some kind of mistake.

Garrett also said she asked current Revenue Commissioner Harvey Bowlin and recently-elected Revenue Commissioner Sally Flowers about getting the pamphlet printed in Braille but has not received an answer. Flowers does not take office until October 2009.

Dunklin said it was her understanding Bowlin was checking into getting the pamphlet printed in Braille, but she did not know a definite timetable about it happening.

Garrett said she is planning to file a grievance with the U.S. Department of Justice under the Americans With Disabilities Act.