Property Taxes Cuts on the Ballot in at Least Eight States

Accord­ing to an arti­cle in State­line, mea­sures aimed at reduc­ing prop­er­ty tax­es will be on the bal­lot in at least eight states this Novem­ber: Ari­zona, Col­orado, Flori­da, Geor­gia, New Mex­i­co, North Dako­ta, Vir­ginia, and Wyoming. The move comes as home mar­ket val­ues, which have increased about 50 per­cent since August 2019, are start­ing to impact prop­er­ty assess­ments, and home own­ers are feel­ing the pinch.

“No state illus­trates this year’s flur­ry of bal­lot mea­sures to cut prop­er­ty tax­es bet­ter than Col­orado,” where “one bal­lot ini­tia­tive would cap annu­al state prop­er­ty tax rev­enue growth from res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial prop­er­ties at 4%” and anoth­er, which has not cur­rent­ly qual­i­fied for the bal­lot but is expect­ed to, “would cut res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial prop­er­ty tax assess­ment rates,” reports State­line’s Elaine S. Povich.

Prop­er­ty tax­es have always been unpop­u­lar, despite being a fair­ly effi­cient form of tax­a­tion; experts posit that’s because they are often “paid in a large lump a cou­ple or so times a year — as opposed to income tax­es or sales tax­es, which are paid in drib­bles — they tend to leave a big­ger impres­sion on tax­pay­ers,” Povich writes. Some groups in Col­orado want an even high­er cap than 4 per­cent, but some say the bal­lot mea­sure go too far and risk erod­ing the fund­ing source for crit­i­cal gov­ern­ment ser­vices like schools, roads, emer­gency respon­ders, and oth­er local gov­ern­ment ser­vices.

Here’s a quick sum­ma­ry of the prop­er­ty-tax relat­ed bal­lot mea­sures beyond Col­orado:

• Ari­zona: Prop­er­ty own­ers could “apply for a prop­er­ty tax refund if the munic­i­pal­i­ty does not enforce laws against ille­gal camp­ing, loi­ter­ing, pan­han­dling, pub­lic uri­na­tion, pub­lic con­sump­tion of alco­hol and pos­ses­sion of ille­gal sub­stances. 
• Flori­da: State would allow adjust the home­stead exemp­tion accord­ing to annu­al infla­tion for peo­ple whose prop­er­ties are their pri­ma­ry res­i­dence
• Geor­gia: Local­i­ties could cre­ate a home­stead exemp­tion for home­own­ers who use a prop­er­ty as their pri­ma­ry res­i­dence.
• New Mex­i­co: Vet­er­ans would get more prop­er­ty tax breaks.
• North Dako­ta: Prop­er­ty tax­es would be elim­i­nat­ed entire­ly, which experts say could cost the state $1.3 bil­lion per year.
• Vir­ginia: Vet­er­ans would get more prop­er­ty tax breaks.
• Wyoming: State would cre­ate a new class of prop­er­ty for tax­a­tion, sep­a­rat­ing own­er-occu­pied dwellings from rental prop­er­ties.