All across America and around the world, this
is Veterans Radio. This is Veterans Radio. Good
day. I'm Jim Fausone. I'm the Officer of the
Deck today here on Veterans Radio and thanks
for joining us. We've got some interesting stories
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get started, we want to thank our sponsors. First
up, we want to thank National Veteran Business
Development Council, NVBDC .org. It was established
to certify both service -disabled and veteran
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help your business by going to NVBDC .org. We
want to thank Legal Help for Veterans. Legal
Help for Veterans fights for veterans disability
rights all across the nation. You can reach them
at 800 -693 -4800 or on the web at legalhelpforveterans
.com. And finally, PuroClean. PuroClean is the
paramedics of property damage. It provides water
damage remediation, flood water removal, fire
and smoke damage remediation, mold removal, biohazard
cleanup. It also has a focus on veteran franchisees.
You can learn more about them by going to PuroClean
.com. We want to welcome to Veterans Radio today
an Army veteran, Stephen Parent Jr. Stephen,
welcome to Veterans Radio. Jim, thanks for having
me. Excited to be on. Well, we have you on to
talk about an issue that you've been involved
in lately and we'll talk a little bit about your
military service and certainly your businesses
which are interesting. But you know, every state
kind of promotes what it does for veterans from
different breaks on licenses and fees or real
property tax credits. or exemptions, and that's
where you bumped into a problem that I think
we ought to talk about. But before we get into
the problem, let's talk a little bit, Stephen,
about your service in the Army from 2000 to 2004.
Sure, yeah. Like a lot of guys, I... Uh, joined,
uh, with, uh, third generation, uh, military
guy always wanted to do it. And, um, I also had
really no other means to go to college without,
without, uh, using the military. So, uh, joined
as a 14 tango and, uh, did my basic training
there in Fort, uh, Sill, Oklahoma. And, uh, my
AIT was down in, uh, Fort Bliss, Texas. And I
immediately did my first, I guess, deployment
would be in South Korea for a year. And then
I went back to Fort Bliss and then shot over
to Iraq for a tour there before getting out.
Well, and like a lot of folks who serve, there's
dings and dings along the way. You found yourself
in a situation that ultimately resulted in VA
giving you 100 % disability rating. Maybe you
can elaborate a little on that. Yeah, absolutely.
So I actually had a little bit of a strange story
as it goes, but I began having some issues. Maybe
about a year, a year or so before I got out of
the military with my feet. I just couldn't, I
couldn't deal with the pain that was happening
and I couldn't understand what was happening
with the feet. So I went in just to, you know,
potentially get it fixed was the goal. Cause
I was thinking about reenlisting and. I went
into a normal day, going to a doctor's office
thinking they're going to say, hey, this was
wrong, wear this brace, do this. And they did
the x -rays and all the imaging and came back
in the room. And the doctor looked at me and
goes, you're not fit for duty. You're going to
be medically discharged out of the military.
And I said, what? He said, you got some bone
deformities that have happened in your feet.
And we can't have you in the military anymore.
And I said, well, that's not a good thing because
I'm in the middle of getting ready to deploy
Tyrak. He goes, well, you're not going to be
deploying. He goes, you've got some stress fractures
right now that I don't know how they haven't
snapped. And you're in a bad space right now.
In fact, I'm going to put you on a full profile.
You can't do anything. We got to get these stress
fractures healed before we can even discharge
you. And long story short, I went to my chain
of command. I said, so this is what I just got
told. And my first sergeant looked at me and
goes, I don't care about that. You're deploying
with us. And I said, oh, OK. Well, they told
me I'm not deploying. But if you say so. So I
had my follow up doctor appointment. I said,
hey. My first sergeant is planning on deploying
me. I just want to let you know, I'm not going
to be able to do these other appointments. And
they said, you can't. You're under the command
of the medical board. You can't be deployed.
And they sent a memorandum to my first sergeant.
And I was kind of caught in the middle of it.
And the last thing I'd been told the day before
Thanksgiving of 2002, the last thing I'd been
told was, you're not deploying. And I heard that
from my direct sergeant. And I said, OK, cool.
So the day they were all deploying, I got a knock
at the door. And it's my first sergeant. I want
all your shit packed. You're coming. OK. So I
hurried up, packed my C -bag, did all the things.
And as I was boarding the airplane to head out,
I'm going up the steps. It wasn't like a hallway
they connect to the plane. It was like these
steps you had to walk up into the plane. And
I had all my gear on. I'm walking up in the plane.
I got about halfway up and snap. My foot snapped
and it didn't hurt, but I continued walking up
the steps. I knew something happened, but I didn't
think I broke my foot or anything. The plane
took off and as it got higher and higher, I'm
going, oh, this hurts, something's not right.
I couldn't get my boot off. a medic cut my boot
off right on the airplane as we're in the sky.
And I, you know, long story short, I ended up
flying about 19 hours with a compound fracture.
I have bones sticking right on the top of my
foot. And, uh, and somewhere, somewhere there's
a doctor saying, I told you so. Yeah. Oh yeah.
A hundred percent. And, uh, so I, when I, when
I landed into algebra for space Kuwait, they
took me to the hospital there and he goes, did
you, the surgeon, he goes, Is there any history
did you i mean were you experiencing any pain
i said doc i'm under medical board right now
i'm supposed to be medically i'm supposed to
be being discharged in you know six months or
whatever i'm going through the process right
now for this exact thing and i kind of gave him
the scoop and he he had that that look on his
face that i knew and he knew someone was in some
trouble and uh. And so, yeah, long story short,
I went through some rehabilitation for that.
It's never actually been corrected since getting
out of the military. I've had three pretty extensive
surgeries, my last one being December 2nd of
2023, where I was out for six months, non -weight
bearing. I've went to consultations to have the
thing amputated a few times. And every time I
go to a surgeon to do that, they say, I have
a better idea. Let's try this. And so yeah, the
military actually ended up giving me 100 % retirement.
And then I ended up getting the 100 % disability
to the VA as well because of the ongoing issues
that now my left foot is experiencing because
it's taken the brunt of all the all the weakness
in the right foot. So sure. Well, that we wanted
to explain to folks sort of how you got to this
100 % because it is, for many, kind of a mythical
number. But it also triggers, in many states,
it triggers various benefits, state benefits
available to veterans. And in Michigan, where
you're situated, one of those benefits is property
tax exemption. Correct. And it's an annual renewal
thing. You've got to continually tell the local
assessor, hey, I'm exempt. I'm 100 % service
disabled. Here's my VA letter proving that up.
And you've done that for a number of years, correct?
Yes. Yep. I've done it since 2013. And then one
day, 12 years later, I guess, somebody says,
oh, no, we've interpreted the the state benefit
differently now, you no longer qualify. So talk
us through how that became like, wait a minute,
what changed? And then we'll talk about the battle
that you're on now. Yeah, so like you said, it's
been steady as she goes. Since 2013, I've had
my property tax exemption, which has been great.
I actually live in one of the colonies here in
Michigan that has, you know, high property taxes,
Ottawa County. And, you know, the difference
is, you know, pretty significant, five to 600
bucks a month or something to that effect. And
one day I, you know, I, well, let me preface
this by saying, you know, I'm very active in
my community and in my township and the things
that I do for a living, which we can get into,
have never been a secret. In fact, you know,
the plans for my facility here that I work out
of have had to be approved by my township and
all of those things and nothing's changed. So
since I've had this property tax exemption, I've
continued to do the things that I do here, which
is I have three businesses. I have a dog training
company that specializes in police dogs and whatnot.
And then I have security company, a large event
security company. And then I have a foundation
and the foundation is kind of my passion. It's
what I work probably 30 to 40 hours a week on,
but that's providing service dogs to veterans
at no cost in Michigan. So it's a great thing
and I've been doing it. And one day, I think
it was last February, I went to my mailbox, opened
my mail, and I saw that my township was revoking
my property tax exemption due to the fact that
I have a business or that I operate a business
on the property that my home is on. And I was
shocked. And that's kind of led me to you and
why we're talking. It is. And when you go back
to this, we spent, Steve and I spent some time
looking at like, why did they change their position?
We found that the Michigan Tax Commission had
put out a new fact questionnaire, FAQ, and In
it, there was like one line that said, well if
you operate any business out of your house, you
don't get the exemption. And that's not what
the law says. That was what somebody interpreted
it to mean and wrote it up in an FAQ and now
it became gospel because they wrote it on state
stationary and your local property assessor said,
oh well, look at this. denied or revoked your
exemption for that year and the years going forward,
I wanna point out that most of these benefits
that the state issues don't have qualifiers on
them. The decision is made by the VA. If the
VA says you're 100 % rated and disabled, you
get the exemptions, not. Oh, but maybe you can
do some work or you do some work out of the house
or you got a side hustle. I mean, you really
have kind of a small bit of your business on
your personal property. Why don't you explain
what it is that that is on the personal property?
Sure, so I have a 50 by 64 pole barn that makes
up less than one percent of my total. property
area. And within that pole barn, we facilitate
younger dogs in that area. So dogs that can't
go to our normal or larger, that's not on the
property training facility because of their age,
we bring dogs in here. They're usually three
to eight, maybe nine months old. And we start
socializing them, feeding them, doing all the
things to get them ready for what we call their
school, which is where they learn to be superheroes.
And so that's what we do here. It is a minimal
use in terms of what we do here versus what my
township believes we do here. They have documented
that their belief is that I'm making millions
of dollars out of this building, which my response
to them is, well, where is that? Where is it?
Well, and more importantly, what the hell is
it to any of their business? Right. You've got
the VA rating, end of story. Don't make an extra,
well, we don't want you to have a business, or
maybe we don't want to have too successful business.
When you and I've talked about this, a lot of
veterans with 100 % ratings have some side hustle
because you're barely making it with what you're
getting paid if you have a family and you gotta
pay property taxes or anything else. But somehow
they've read into this and what's their explanation
for why they get to decide if the side hustle
disqualifies you? You know, it's interesting.
Oftentimes in my life I've had things come up
or just being in a normal day of work. I've seen
things happen. I've had things happen to me.
And I always have this perspective of positive
intent. I always assume that somebody made a
mistake and the person who's in charge of that
somebody probably doesn't know or isn't aware
of that mistake, but will correct it when it's
presented. And that belief has been validated
dozens of times in my life. And so when this
first happened and my township referenced this
fact that was updated by the Michigan State Tax
Commission that we could not operate a business
on the property, my first thought was, this is
a joke. This isn't real. This is some intern
wrote this or there's no way. And I really quickly
went and referenced the law of the MCL that governs
the tax exemption to see if potentially there
was an update. that I was unaware of. And there
wasn't, right? It's been since the governor Snider
signed it into legislation, it's remained that
way and untouched. And so from my perspective,
I was confused. I didn't know where this was
coming from. I'm someone who, I won't say I'm
political savvy or anything like that, but I'm
aware of process. I took a ninth grade civics
class. I pay attention to the news and I equated
this initially, day one as I'm processing everything,
I equated this to if my daughter were to walk
into Secretary of State right now, and she's
16, and she said, I'm here to get my driver's
license, And the woman at the counter says, you
know, sorry, but the Secretary of State has decided
that you have to be 19 to get a driver's license.
And we treated that as if it was law. That's
sort of what the Michigan State Tax Commission
is doing. They're taking, the law is. you have
to be 16 to get a driver's license, but the Secretary
of State is taking a position of, well, we want
it to be 19. It's the exact same thing that's
happening right now. Legislation has approved
and passed and signed what this Michigan State
or what the veteran property tax exemption is
and how it operates. And then we have an agency,
which is the Michigan State Tax Commission going,
yeah, that's cool, but we think it should be
this. with no promulgation, with no discussion,
with no public input. And there's plenty of case
law that outlines that agencies do not create
laws. And so I was confused. I was very confused,
but I felt like it was going to be a phone call
to fix it. Right. And you figure, well, if I
go to the state commissioner of Michigan, Michigan
state commissioner on taxes. She's gonna clean
that right up. So, you know, you send her a letter,
you explain what's going on, and clearly that
extra language about running a business of any
size or shape or scope isn't in the law. Crickets
is what you get back. That led you to, well,
I'm, you know. I'm a hard -headed army guy. I'm
taking this forward, not only for myself, but
for everybody else, and let me go talk to some
politicians in the state capitol. How's that
worked out? So, you know, I'll tell ya, I am
someone that is extremely mission -oriented and
task -oriented. If there's something that...
I focus on, I see it through almost to a fault.
And one of the things I did like a lot of other
people do is I got onto my foundation Facebook
page that mostly connected to veterans and I
posted to anyone else having issues with us.
My belief was initially that I can afford the
property taxes. uh i'm blessed to be able to
do that but man if they start doing this doing
this to some of the other veterans that i know
that i've that i've given service dogs to um
you know uh this is gonna this could potentially
be bad and so as i put out my feelers and started
getting other people responding to me letting
me know that it is happening to them you know
a veteran uh that's paralyzed from the waist
down that was maybe three miles from me um that
operates a car detailing business. He's never
made more than $3 ,200. That's his highest month
in four years is $3 ,200 extra in a month. He's
got tons of issues, including PTSD. And the idea
that they would punish him for trying to supplement
his VA income and make a better life for himself
and provide for his family blew my mind. um especially
given the fact that he's part of his rating a
significant part of his rating is for ptsd which
he has so social anxiety he don't he he i not
to say he can't but it's not in his best interest
i suppose you could say to go get a normal job
at walmart and be around all the people and so
he's doing what he can and so as i started learning
that this wasn't just me this is other people
other people who aren't as fortunate as me. And
when they get hit with an extra $600, $700 a
month, it's the difference between them being
able to afford their home or not afford their
home. And so at that point, I decided, OK, I'm
going to advocate. And I didn't know what that
meant. I didn't know where to start. And so I
just started calling people and Googling people.
You know, getting on Google and typing in Michigan
Senator Veterans and just really anything that
I could do to get somebody on the phone. Let
me stop you here because we're talking to people
all across the nation who are listening in on
Veterans Radio. And one of the things that, you
know, we do this for this sort of pearls of wisdom
that is being offered by our guests. And this
is one of them. If you see a wrong, There is
a way, you know, one person often thinks, oh,
I can't do anything. Yeah, you can get on the
phone. You can get on the computer. You can talk
to folks who about this isn't right and why it
isn't right. And in this instance, it's a bunch
of government folk you got to talk to to try
to get somebody to say, oh, yeah, somebody typed
in an extra sentence that's not really there.
So the momentum starts building and where does
it go? So the momentum starts building I'm getting
a lot of people I make a lot of noise and I got
in touch for the first time someone said we'll
call you back was Center Hotel here in Michigan
Someone from his office said he'll call you back
and I don't yeah. Okay. I'd heard that, you know
64 other times And he did he called me back and
said, you know, what are you doing Wednesday?
I want you to come down here and meet with me
And, you know, after over a year, it's actually
been about 14 months of me just screaming at
the top of my lungs, hey, this is what's happening.
Someone help and no one listening. It felt really,
really good just to get that meeting. And it
went great. I was very prepared for the meeting.
I put together a packet, a one -pager. I actually
had draft legislation. I knew that was going
to be an obstacle just from doing my research.
sometimes just getting the language formatted
right and done right to put into legislation
can be a long process. And so I went through
and contacted a bunch of folks and had the draft
legislation put together, met with Senator Hurtel.
He was floored when I presented this to him.
He had no idea. He actually reached out to, right
in front of me, reached out to some other folks
that sit on the Veterans Committee. and said,
are you aware of this? They were unaware of it.
And so he said, listen, he actually had a bill
that was about two weeks away from me and submitted
to committee that had to do with property taxes,
something to do with the proration. And he said,
we're going to save six months here because we're
just going to take, we're going to send this
out, we're going to have the language drafted,
and we're going to put it into our existing bill
that's already been cleared to be submitted to
committee. I said, well, turn to page nine. I
had the language already written. And he was
like, you got to be kidding. And it was written
in the way it could be easily submitted. And
so it was. And they owned it. And they've been
in day -to -day communication with me. Since
then, I've had other senators reach out. I have
an invite to go sit before a committee. It's
an open invite. I'm not sure of the day yet,
but coming up in the next three or four weeks,
I'll be going to Lansing to sit in front of a
committee to discuss how this impacts veterans.
And, you know, I'm hoping that we can move this
in the right direction. We still have a long
ways to go, but this has been, you know, with
your help, you know, you've been a great advocate
for this as well in writing the letter you did
to the chairwoman. It's been people like you
that I've found that actually do listen and go,
yeah, this isn't right. If I can dedicate some
time and some resources to it, I'm gonna. So
Stephen, let me interrupt, because I don't want
to run out of time. If there's somebody out there
going, yeah, you've got to treat your veterans
better than that. You can't be taking this property
tax exemption away because they've got to side
hustle a little bit or something going on on
their property. If you moved the car detailing
off -site, he'd get his exemption. If you moved
keeping some puppies in the pole barn off -site,
you'd get the property taxes. It's sort of a
stupid game. But if people want to get on your
soapbox and reach out to somebody, who should
they reach out to? Well, I would say that we
can reach out. There's two ways to go about it.
If they want to write a productive email that
expressing their disagreement with what's going
on, I think the Michigan State Tax Commission
Chairperson would be a great start since they
oversee this back that was published. They can
reach her by email. Uh, and I, and again, I wanted
to remind the listeners, you know, these need
to be productive. They're not, we're, we're not
looking for anyone to, you know, be bullied or,
or anything like that. Absolutely. And, and,
and just be productive and, uh, and be an advocate.
Uh, but that the email address for her is, uh,
her name is Peggy Nolde and it's, uh, Nolde N
O L D E P at Michigan .gov. And I think that's
a great start. The more people she hears from,
the better. And then Senator Hurtel's office,
which is, they can be contacted at A -T -O P
-I -L -A -R -I at senate .michigan .gov. And
he's been a huge advocate and I don't know what
I would do without him. Again, I want to broaden
this out so that our veteran radio listeners
around the country have some understanding how
this might impact them. VA actually just put
out an information sheet in April 22nd of 2025
called Unlocking Veteran Tax Exemptions. across
states and territories, your roadmap to veteran
tax benefits by state and territory, you can
go to news .va .gov and then search for that
by using unlocking veteran tax exemptions. It'll
come up. And it's every state. And every state
has something different. Alaska, for example,
it's disabled veterans with a 50 % or higher
service connection rating get a property tax
exemption. In Michigan, it's 100%. In Florida,
it starts as low as 10%. If you have a 10 % VA
rating, you get a discount on your property tax.
So it's really all over the board. And while
we've been talking property tax exemption, this
particular VA resource is broader than that,
talking about income motor vehicles and other
benefits that may be available to veterans based
on their disability rating. So news .va .gov.
And I also want to self promote a little bit
on legal help for veterans. We have a e -book
specifically on property tax exemptions, that
may be helpful. That's a free e -book. You can
go to legalhelpforveterans .com, click on the
e -books and go look that one up. It's really
surprising to me that this has taken a year and
a half and still isn't quite over the finish
line. Hopefully it's heading in that direction.
But what you've done is very powerful. I want
to talk a little bit about what uh west michigan
canine and in particular west michigan canine
foundation does tell tell us a little bit about
that yeah so west michigan canine uh it's it's
a company that i started in 2013 uh with the
goal of just doing some dog training you know
whether people um you know uh initially just
helping out people like you people people like
our listeners um And it's morphed into a company
where we provide dogs to law enforcement agencies,
to hospitals, to really training dogs to do a
job. And it's been great. And the W .M. Canine
Foundation is a foundation that I started. So
through West Michigan Canine, which is the dog
training for profit side of the business, we
would often get reached out to by veterans saying
hey can you guys do train service dogs and I
would say yeah we can do it you know but here
here's the cost and you know I can't help the
cost I have labor and everything else that goes
into a service dog and it's very labor intensive
and so we would oftentimes get dogs that made
it through our program and almost all the way
and then we would wash them for whatever, for
one reason or the other. We decided that they
weren't going to be a good fit to be a police
dog. Maybe they didn't have the right tolerances
for people or they didn't have the right drives
in them to be a good police dog and we'd wash
them and we would donate them to veterans as
service dogs. And we just saw that, I saw the
impact that that was having. and decided to create
the foundation around it. And so the WMK9 Foundation,
which is the website is wmk9foundation .org.
Its mission is to provide dogs to people and
communities that otherwise can't afford them.
And what we do on a daily basis is we go out
and procure the dog, and then we have... a team
of people that train these dogs to a very high
level. So whether it's a mobility assistance
dog or a PTSD dog or, you know, we train dogs
to, you know, help people go retrieve things
or shut off the lights or we train those dogs
and we do it and we provide them at no cost to
the veteran. And oftentimes we're providing the
dog a lifetime of food. lifetime of vet support
for the dog. So really there's no out of pocket
expense. And it is changing the world. It is
changing lives. We've had so many success stories,
Jim. I couldn't even be, I mean, I could probably
spend an entire episode on it. Yeah, we could
do a whole thing on it. dog stories always go
well. But I wanna, before we wind up here, I
wanna give people these email addresses. Again,
if you're interested in the foundation, maybe
supporting it, maybe requesting a dog, go to
wmk9foundation .org. Correct, yep. And if you
wanna know more about Stephen's business, West
Michigan Canine, Go to westmichigank9 .com, different
websites for different activities. But I really
want to thank you for taking some time today
to talk to veteran radio listeners about this
whole problem that arises when sometimes an agency
overly adds things to what the law really says
and has a detrimental impact on veterans in this
case. We just want to remind you that Veterans
Radio Podcasts, are available on all your favorite
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your tablet, but listen in to Veterans Radio
Podcasts. We post something new every week. and
you're going to find it informative. And I want
to thank everybody for listening to Veterans
Radio today. I am Jim Fossone. It's been a pleasure
to be your host. I'm a Veterans disability lawyer
at Legal Help for Veterans and you can reach
us at 800 -693 -4800 or legalhelpforveterans
.com on the web. You can follow Veterans Radio
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VA can help you on your claims and your appeals.
It can be reached at legalhelpforveterans .com
or 1 -800 -693 -4800. And PuroClean, a leader
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