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.