29 Jan Will we have to file applications for ANCHOR every year?

Q. Will we need to file a new application for 2021 benefits or will our previous applications for 2019 and 2020 serve for 2021? If a new application is necessary, where can we find it? And my wife and I live together in the same house. Am I correct in assuming that there is only one benefit for the two of us?
— Homeowner

A. Let’s start with your last question first.

As a married couple in the same home, you’ll only get one ANCHOR benefit.

As for how benefits will be happened in the future, we simply don’t know yet.

For the second year of the benefit, which was for the 2020 tax year, the Treasury Department automatically applied for more than a million residents who received the 2019 benefit.

The residents who had the automatic applications were those for whom the state had all the needed information. If the resident’s situation changed, they would have to notify the state.

The state hasn’t told us this, but we expect it will try to file automatically for as many residents as possible for future years.

For the 2020 benefit year, those who had automatic applications received that notification in mid-August. Then the applications were mailed to other residents later that month, and the state said the majority of applicants would get their money by Nov. 1.

And the final deadline was Dec. 29.

We expect the state will follow similar timing for future benefits — if there are future benefits.

ANCHOR is funded as part of the state budget, so we won’t know anything for certain until the end of June.

Safe to guess, though, that lawmakers won’t want to take the funding away. But it’s not a done deal until it’s a done deal.

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This story was originally published in January 2024.

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