There were more than 140 ballot measures in 41 states during the election last month. While all eyes were on the ballot measures relating to abortion and marijuana, there were 10 ballot measures in eight states relating in some way to property taxes, and one more is coming up in an election in Louisiana on December 7.
There were ballot measures in Colorado (Amendment G), New Mexico (Amendments 1 & 2), and Virginia concerning property tax exemptions for veterans.
There was a ballot measure in Arizona (Proposition 312) concerning property tax refunds.
There was a ballot measure in Georgia (Amendment 1) concerning a personal property tax exemption.
There was a ballot measure in Wyoming concerning the separation of classes of property for taxation.
There was a ballot measure in North Dakota (Initiated Measure 4) concerning the abolition of property taxes.
There was a ballot measure in Georgia (Referendum A) concerning the personal property tax exemption.
There was a ballot measure in Florida (Amendment 5) concerning homestead property tax exemption.
All of these measures on the November ballot were passed by the voters except for the one in North Dakota.
One of the most significant ballot measures relating to property taxes that passed was the one in my state of Florida. Currently, according to Ballotpedia:
In Florida, property tax (millage) rates were set by counties, school districts, cities, and special districts. Homes in Florida are assessed at just value (market value), minus the homestead exemption. The homestead exemption reduces the taxable value of a property. Every primary residence is eligible for a $25,000 homestead exemption, which exempts that amount from all taxes. Another $25,000 homestead exemption is applied on a homestead’s value between $50,000 and $75,000, which exempts that amount from all taxes except school district taxes.
Other property tax exemptions may be granted for those with disabilities, those deployed on active military duty, disabled veterans, surviving spouses of veterans or first responders, and low-income citizens aged 65 or older.
Amendment 5, the “Annual Inflation Adjustment for Homestead Property Tax Exemption Value Amendment,” provides for an annual inflation adjustment for the value of the homestead property tax exemption that applies to nonschool taxes, to be made every year on January 1. The amendment passed by a margin of 66 to 34 percent, and it will lower the property tax bills of most Florida homeowners.
This was a legislatively referred constitutional amendment supported by all Republicans in the Republican-controlled Florida House and all but three in the Republican-controlled Senate. Conversely, House Democrats voted down the amendment by a vote of 29-5, and all 12 Senate Democrats voted against it.
According to Attom, a real-estate data-analytics company, municipalities across the country collected $363.3 billion in property taxes from 89.4 million single-family homes in 2023, a 6.9 percent increase over 2022. The average annual property-tax bill rose by 4.1 percent to more than $4,000. The effective nationwide property tax rate (the average annual property tax as a percentage of the average estimated market value of homes) rose from .83 to .87 percent. The highest effective rates were in Illinois (1.88%), New Jersey (1.64%), Connecticut (1.54%), New York (1.46%), and Nebraska (1.46%). The lowest rates were in Hawaii (0.31%), Arizona (0.41%), Alabama (0.42%), Delaware (0.43%), and Tennessee (0.44%).
It is hard to determine what the worst form of taxation is, or which tax is “better” than another, and each type of tax comes with its own pitfalls. Every tax takes a portion of our wealth, spends it in ways that we would not spend it ourselves, and therefore lowers our disposable income.
Taxes are paid to federal, state, and local governments.
The Social Security tax is a federal tax of 12.4 percent (split equally between employer and employee) on the first $168,600 of employee income — the same income that is used to assess the Medicare tax and federal income tax.
The Medicare tax is a federal tax of 2.9 percent (split equally between employer and employee) on every dollar of income — the same income that is used to assess the Social Security tax and federal income tax.
Federal income tax brackets are 10, 12, 22, 24, 32, 35, and 37 percent. Income can take the form of wages, employee benefits, property rental, royalties, capital gains, interest earned, dividends received, unemployment benefits, Social Security benefits, canceled debts, alimony payments, gambling winnings, prizes, or awards, and most states have an income tax as well. But as Frank Chodorov (1887-1966) explained in his book The Income Tax: Root of All Evil (1954), the income tax means that the state says to its citizens, “Your earnings are not exclusively your own; we have a claim on them, and our claim precedes yours; we will allow you to keep some of it, because we recognize your need, not your right; but whatever we grant you for yourself is for us to decide.”
But that’s not all. Excise taxes are collected by the federal government on airline tickets, fuel, tires, alcohol, and tobacco. The worst of these are “sin” taxes imposed on goods that the government considers unhealthy, harmful, or immoral.
Estate and gift taxes ensure that the federal government collects taxes from you even after you’re dead.
Sales taxes are ad valorem consumption taxes collected by most states on the sale of most goods and services. And there is usually a local option sales tax added on top of the state sales tax. But as economist Murray Rothbard (1926-1995) explained:
The consumption tax, on the other hand, can only be regarded as a payment for permission-to-live. It implies that a man will not be allowed to advance or even sustain his own life unless he pays, off the top, a fee to the State for permission to do so. The consumption tax does not strike me, in its philosophical implications, as one whit more noble, or less presumptuous, than the income tax.
Property taxes are collected by local governments or government entities on the assessed value of real, and sometimes personal, property. Property taxes are the ultimate hidden tax. They are usually lumped in with one’s mortgage payment so you never actually write a check to pay them. But after you pay your mortgage for 30 years, you still never really own your property because you still have to pay your annual property taxes. Property taxes amount to rent you pay to the government to live in your own house — for the rest of your life.
Property taxes are evil because they are an attack on private property, which is the foundation of a free society. They also generally include school system taxes regardless of whether one has, or has ever had, children in a local public school. Property taxes do not correspond with the value of “services” received by the property owner from his local government. When it comes to payroll taxes and the income tax, a drop in income usually always results in a lower tax bill. But property taxes do not go down when one loses a job or suffers a cut in salary or hours worked. They may, in fact, increase if new assessments come on the tail end of an inflationary period.
Writing in National Review earlier this year, Jared Walczak said that “there’s nothing conservative about repealing the property tax.” This is because conservatives have no philosophical objection to the government taking a portion of every American’s income, capital gains, or wealth. They simply was the confiscation of wealth by government to be done fairly and efficiently.