Bob Mercer cooks up the strange thesis that “shifting some of the property-tax burden off single-family residential dwellings” was part of an overarching effort by the 2026 Legislature to “make South Dakota a safer place“.
Sure, safer if you have an expensive house. But not if you’re a low-income South Dakotan—GOP Senate Leader Jim Mehlhaff (R-24/Pierre) admits he’s picking your pocket to give rich homeowners their tax break:
There’s no doubt that raising sales taxes in order to lower property taxes will shift more of South Dakota’s tax burden to lower-income residents, Republican Senate Majority Leader Jim Mehlhaff said.
“It is regressive,” he said. “There’s no denying that” [Kevin Hardy, “Republican Push to Increase Sales Tax Would Fall Hardest on Lower-Income Residents,” Stateline, 2026.03.18].
Senator Mehlhaff has two primary challengers. Perhaps Brian Murphy or Mark Nelson will ask Mehlhaff and District 24 voters how raising taxes on the poor makes South Dakota safer.
They could do all kinds of things. How about bonuses on all the jobs that illegals have done? How else to get workers to work in slaughtering or dairys? They need to fill those jobs but Republicans only know the stick and not the carrot.
Making the poor poorer is something the just do naturally, it’s in their DNA.
I’ve been a big house empty nester for some time. I guess they really believe that getting rid of property tax will benefit their base. Regressive is their way.
Again, South Dakota doubles down on it’s “Most Regressive” state and local tax system ranking. South Dakota’s reverse Robinhood tax system relies heavily on regressive sales and property taxes.
In South Dakota the lowest 20% of income households (less than $28,000) pay 11.4% of income in state and local taxes. The top 1% (over $686,200) pay only 2.6%.
January 2024 ITEP Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
South Dakota: Who Pays? 7th Edition
https://itep.org/whopays-map-7th-edition/
https://sfo2.digitaloceanspaces.com/itep/itep-whopays7-South-Dakota.pdf
Who Pays? 7th Edition
https://itep.org/whopays-7th-edition/