Doing far more substantive work in the Capitol yesterday than the medical mariwhiners was the Legislature’s Comprehensive Property Tax Task Force, which recommended for consideration eighteen proposals (out of 27 placed on the committee table) for addressing property taxes.
I have to say addressing, because not all of the potential legislation would cut property taxes or raise other taxes to replace them. Representative Greg Jamison’s (R-12/Sioux Falls) Proposal B would stamp a weblink and QR code on every property tax bill to give taxpayers more details about what they are paying. Like his not-recommended Proposal C to sequester municipal property taxes and report expenditures therefrom, Proposal B seeks to ease citizen tax-stress with more transparency. Jamison also offers Proposal E to allow South Dakotans to apply for property tax relief programs online instead of having to fill out paper forms. (Hey, Greg! Online petitions are next, right?)
Bob Mercer’s monumental summary of every single proposal debated yesterday shows that nobody brought forward the Muellers’ ridiculous, doomed, and underfunded retail transaction tax to repeal all property taxes. Senator Jim Mehlhaff did bring his plan to replace school property taxes with a jacked-up state sales tax. Even with his Proposal S scaled down a notch from two full percentage points to 1.9 additional percentage points, Mehlhaff could only get 4 ayes for that proposal against 11 nays.
The most comprehensive proposal came from a subcommittee chaired by Senator Taffy Howard (R-34/Rapid City), which in two versions (here and here) offered not quite 50% reductions in owner-occupied property taxes. Proposal V would have paid for those reductions by increasing taxes, imposing new taxes (40% on vaping!), pulling dollars from the Future Fund, repealing exemptions to sales tax, repealing the stealth voucher tax credits (!!!) and cutting the state budget by a hair or two over 5%. Neither version of the sweeping Proposal V got a vote, but Howard ally Speaker Jon Hansen (R-25/Dell Rapids) did secure a 9–6 recommendation for Proposal V3, which ditches everything but the budget cut, 5%, $123 million. Hansen did not cowboy up with specific cuts; his proposal just calls for Governor Larry Rhoden to propose 5% cuts in his December budget address.
Senator Glen Vilhauer (R-5/Watertown) noted that a 5% budget cut won’t reach the goal the committee started with of cutting property taxes by 50%. Neither, it appears, do any of the other recommended proposals by themselves. While advancing 18 proposals for further discussion is commendable, the committee and the full Legislature still have a lot of hard work ahead to deliver real property tax relief… or to educate their complaining constituents about the price we have to pay to sustain South Dakota’s government services and standard of living.
Watching the SD Republican Earth haters beating the crap out of one another makes this interested party very happy.
On another forum, someone mentioned cutting extracurricular activities, but I’m pretty sure that won’t save much money, if my math was correct, owner occupied would save $100/year in the Sioux falls school district based on arts/athletic funding that’s proposed for next year. Not quite the 50% they are aiming for huh?
If the goal is to reduce property taxes just raise sales tax a little on non food items to offset. Start simple. (Remove food sales tax while at it, except on hotdogs… increase tax on hotdogs to cigarette levels :) )
Not sure why they have to get complicated.
Of course I haven’t done any math because I don’t know the base numbers.
Sx123. I couldn’t pass on my foot long Costco hotdog with a drink for a buck fifty. At three bucks I’d switch to the chicken.
Republicans all over America are on this property tax gig. Sales taxes are a way to tax the working class even more. I won’t even mention tariffs. .
They can build your house, take care of your house and you and your property get by for free. Whoopee! Oldsters like me would too.
Income tax kicked off with a one-time wealth/asset tax. Repeal sales and property taxes.
Property tax always feels weird to me: commercial and farm property generate income; residential does not. It feels wrong to tax things that are not generating income.
No one is going to reduce property taxes by an appreciable amount if there isn’t an income tax. That committee is just masturbating with their 18 proposals.