Property Taxes
55 posts
Tallying Up the Impact of Florida’s Property Tax Ballot Measure on Local Communities
• By Neva Butkus
Florida voters will soon vote on Amendment 3, which would create a pathway for non-school property tax elimination in the state. If passed, the measure would cost local governments $13.7 billion in the first two years alone.
2026 State Tax Ballot Measures to Watch
• By Aidan Davis
This fall, voters across the country will consider a host of ballot measures that could reshape the fairness and adequacy of their states’ tax systems. Here’s some of what we’re following.
Localities Try Vacant Land Taxes, Mansion Taxes and Second Home Taxes
• By Rita Jefferson
In 2026, cities, counties, and school districts must manage tax cuts coming from federal and state governments, the end of federal pandemic aid, rising costs, and a stagnant economy. This challenging environment is forcing municipalities of all types to ask how they can best fund core priorities and invest in communities in the long term.
NYC and Montana Lead the Way on Second-Home Taxes
• By Rita Jefferson
Second home taxes make a lot of sense for communities struggling with housing costs for full-time residents. They can raise real revenues too, which can be used to support further affordable housing development.
As Inequality Grows, More States Look to Tax the Rich
• By Alex Welch
From surcharges on the income of high-earners to higher taxes on second homes, here are recent steps states have taken to tax the rich.
Maine Passes Millionaires’ Tax and Pushes Back on Federal Changes
• By Marco Guzman
Maine Gov. Janet Mills on Friday put her seal of approval on a supplemental budget bill that includes a “millionaires’ tax.”
State Tax Watch 2026
• By ITEP Staff
ITEP tracks tax discussions in legislatures across the country and uses our unique data capacity to analyze the revenue, distributional, and racial and ethnic impacts of many of these proposals. State Tax Watch offers the latest news and movement from each state.
Property Tax Reforms Can Bring Racial Justice
• By Brakeyshia Samms
Homes in Black neighborhoods are more likely to be over-assessed for tax purposes while being undervalued by private appraisers.
Show Me Where We’re Going: Missouri’s Fiscally Irresponsible Path Will Be Paid for by Everyday People
• By Logan Liguore
Missouri lawmakers have been pushing regressive and shortsighted tax policies that undermine everyday workers and sabotage the Show-Me State’s ability to raise revenue.
2025: The Year in Tax Policy
• By ITEP Staff
From Congressional discussions over the so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" to debates on property taxes, ITEP kept busy this year analyzing tax proposals and showing Americans across the country how tax decisions affect them.
In 2025, Voters Said Yes to Public Resources and Community Investments
• By Rita Jefferson
Important tax measures were on the ballot this week, and the outcomes are clear: many voters support new state and local spending to support critical services in their communities.
State Tax Action in 2025: Amid Uncertainty, Tax Cuts and New Revenue
• By Aidan Davis, Neva Butkus, Marco Guzman
Federal policy choices on tariffs, taxes, and spending cuts will be deeply felt by all states, which will have less money available to fund key priorities. This year some states raised revenue to ensure that their coffers were well-funded, some proceeded with warranted caution, and many others passed large regressive tax cuts that pile on to the massive tax cuts the wealthiest just received under the federal megabill.
Circuit Breakers Are a Better Option for Property Tax Relief
• By Brakeyshia Samms
To curb the impact of property taxes on working families, lawmakers should improve or implement a property tax circuit breaker program. The program works like this: when families are overloaded with their property taxes, the circuit breaker kicks in and helps alleviate the pressure these taxes put on family budgets.
Learn from Prop 13 History to Avoid Repeating Past Mistakes
• By Rita Jefferson
Worries about housing costs and property tax bills are leading people to check the history books for solutions, but there’s a danger that they’ll repeat past mistakes. If anti-tax lawmakers carelessly weaken property taxes as they did in the 1970s, as they did with California’s Proposition 13, they will undercut public finances, making municipalities, school districts, and other special districts worse off.
Policymakers Unwisely Propose Cutting Property Taxes in Favor of Sales Taxes
• By Rita Jefferson
Lawmakers across the country are taking aim at property taxes with a new strategy: raising sales taxes instead. Doing so would create a regressive tax shift that puts unfair burdens on renters and reduces the strength of local government revenues.
2024 State Tax Ballot Questions: Voters to Weigh in on Tax Changes Big and Small
• By Jon Whiten
As we approach November’s election, voters in several states will be weighing in on tax policy changes. The outcomes will impact the equity of state and local tax systems and the adequacy of the revenue those systems are able to raise to fund public services.
Five Tax Takeaways from 2024 State Legislative Sessions
• By Aidan Davis
Major tax cuts were largely rejected this year, but states continue to chip away at income taxes. And while property tax cuts were a hot topic across the country, many states failed to deliver effective solutions to affordability issues.
Property Tax Circuit Breakers Can Help States Create More Equitable Tax Codes
• By Brakeyshia Samms
Well-designed property tax circuit breaker programs allow states to reduce the impact that property taxes have on the upside-down tilt of their tax codes.
Tax Policy is a Part of the Black American Story
• By Brakeyshia Samms
Juneteenth is a reminder of the hard-fought victories that helped Black Americans secure their delayed freedom, justice, and suffrage. And in the chapters about tax policy, the tales are no less fraught. From America’s prologue to the last paragraph of the Civil War, governments raised more tax revenue from the taxation of Black bodies than […]
Tax History Matters: A Q&A with Professor Andrew Kahrl, Author of ‘The Black Tax’
• By Brakeyshia Samms
In his new book, The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America, Professor Andrew Kahrl walks readers through the history of the property tax system and its structural defects that have led to widespread discrimination against Black Americans.
Is California Really a High-Tax State?
• By Carl Davis, Eli Byerly-Duke
Key Findings For families of modest means, California is not a high-tax state. California taxes are close to the national average for families in the bottom 80 percent of the income scale. For the bottom 40 percent of families, California taxes are lower than states like Florida and Texas. The highest earners usually pay higher […]
America Used to Have a Wealth Tax: The Forgotten History of the General Property Tax
• By Carl Davis, Eli Byerly-Duke
Over time, broad wealth taxes were whittled away to become the narrower property taxes we have today. These selective wealth taxes apply to the kinds of wealth that make up a large share of middle-class families’ net worth (like homes and cars), but usually exempt most of the net worth of the wealthy (like business equity, bonds, and pooled investment funds).The rationale for this pared-back approach to wealth taxation has grown weaker in recent decades…
2023’s State and Local Tax Ballot Measures: Voters to Weigh in on Property Taxes, Wealth Taxes, and More
• By Jon Whiten
Even in this slow year for candidate elections, the decisions that voters in states and cities make could strengthen or weaken revenue for needs in their communities and could change how taxes are distributed across the income spectrum. In the places where tax fairness is on the ballot, much is at stake.
States are Talking About the Wrong Kind of Property Tax Cuts
• By Brakeyshia Samms, Carl Davis
Concerns over property tax affordability have been at the forefront this year as housing prices have climbed and property tax bills have often increased along with them. As lawmakers mull a range of property tax cuts, circuit breakers are the best possible approach—and these policies are receiving far too little attention in the states.
Preventing an Overload: How Property Tax Circuit Breakers Promote Housing Affordability
• By Brakeyshia Samms, Carl Davis
Circuit breaker credits are the most effective tool available to promote property tax affordability. These policies prevent a property tax “overload” by crediting back property taxes that go beyond a certain share of income. Circuit breakers intervene to ensure that property taxes do not swallow up an unreasonable portion of qualifying households’ budgets.
The property tax is an important mechanism for funding education and other local services. But it is unpopular among many taxpayers, in large part because it affects low- and middle-income families more heavily than the wealthy. For example, the tax remains the same when a taxpayer’s income drops significantly due to job loss or retirement. ITEP’s property tax resources explain how property taxes work and evaluate a variety of policies to remedy the regressive nature of the tax.
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