ATLANTA — It is a goal spreading among anti-tax crusaders — eliminate all property taxes on homeowners.
Rising property values have inflated tax bills in many states, but ending all homeowner taxes would cost billions or even tens of billions in most states. It is unclear if lawmakers can pull it off without harming schools and local governments that rely on the taxes to provide services.
Officials in North Dakota say they are on their way, using state oil money. Wednesday, Republicans in the Georgia House unveiled a complex effort to phase out homeowner property taxes by 2032. In Florida, GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis says that is his goal, with lawmakers currently considering phasing out nonschool property taxes on homeowners over 10 years. And in Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott says he wants to eliminate property taxes for schools.
Republicans are echoing those who say taxes, especially when the taxman can seize a house for nonpayment, mean no one truly owns property.
“No one should ever face the loss of their home because they can’t pay rent to the government,” Georgia Republican House Speaker Jon Burns of Newington said Wednesday.
These audacious election-year efforts could be joined by ballot initiatives in Oklahoma and Ohio to eliminate all property taxes. Such initiatives were defeated in North Dakota in 2024 and failed to make the ballot in Nebraska that year, although organizers there are trying again. Another initiative in Michigan may also fail to make the ballot.
“We’re very much in this property tax revolt era, which is not unique, it’s not it’s not new. We’ve seen these revolts in the past,” said Manish Bhatt, vice president of state tax policy at the Tax Foundation, a Washington D.C., group that is generally skeptical of new taxes.
Previous backlashes led to laws like California’s Proposition 13, a 1978 initiative that limited property tax rates and how much local governments could increase property valuations for tax purposes.
The efforts are aimed at voters like Tim Hodnett, a 65-year-old retiree in suburban Atlanta’s Lawrenceville. Hodnett’s annual property tax bill rose from $2,000 to $3,000 between 2018 and 2024. He sees those figures starkly because he paid off his mortgage years ago, and he pays his taxes all at once, instead of making monthly payments.
Hodnett said he is disabled and living on $30,000 a year. He is about to get a big property tax break, because seniors in Gwinnett County are exempt from school property taxes, about two thirds of his bill. But he would love to not pay that other $1,000 too.
“It would be nice to be exempt from property taxes,” Hodnett said.
The question is whether local governments and K-12 schools should be expected