Property Tax Fight Falls Short

The Committee to Abolish Ohio Property Taxes announced today that it fell short of its internal goal to collect ~ 620,000 petition signatures to place an Ohio Constitutional amendment eliminating property taxes on the November 2026 ballot.

Ax Ohio Tax ran its petition signature campaign for nearly a year and attracted national attention. It is now targeting the November 2027 ballot.

This is unfortunate - but the effort remains alive.

Ax Ohio Tax will need to start over, and collect the required signatures again for the 2027 ballot effort, and there will a new petition deadline.

As you know, Top of Ohio Patriots has been keeping close watch of the property tax issue.

Below are some thoughts, provided in the spirit of inspiring ongoing considerations and conversations.

• When viewing an annual Property Tax bill, one might be able to see (depending on location) how such taxes are distributed to recipients. For example, perhaps 60% of the tax payment is distributed to “Schools,” 10% is distributed to “Fire,” and the remainder is distributed to a mixed bag of “other things” such as “mental health,” “general,” “children services,” etc. It should be clear that these are all socialized distributions. For example, if an individual property owner has no need for any of these services, why would he/she be forced to pay for them under threat of liens and/or surrender private property? Also: If we look at the biggest ticket distribution item (“Schools”), why are individual property owners paying into this funding stream when schools are *already* heavily subsidized by the State, the Federal Government, and many other sources?

  
  

• A common argument by progressives goes something like this: “There’s no way that we can eliminate Property Taxes! If Property Taxes are eliminated, how would everything get paid for?!” The simple answer to this silly argument is this: If individuals want to directly pay for services like schools, fire services, etc. – that’s fine. But these services should not be force-paid by coercion. People have been tricked into believing that things like K-12 education services and fire services are somehow meant to be provided for “free” by the State. When, in fact, these services ought to be paid for in a free market, like any other services. Nobody bats an eye when colleges and universities expect tuition payments for their educational services. Nobody bats an eye when insurance companies ask for payment for fire damage policy provisions.

  
  

• If someone has issues with the above bullet, and says that the services currently paid for with property taxes must still be paid for through taxation somehow, well . . . OK. People are allowed to believe that if they wish. But, if that's the case, maybe a good first step toward improvement would be to tax for these services through any other tax mechanism that does not threaten liens on (and potential confiscation of) personal property. Our Founding Fathers clearly considered Private Property to be on par with Life and Liberty, there's little doubt that they would be deeply offended by the notion of the modern property tax scheme that has somehow weaseled its way into our system over time. Property tax, as a concept, is fundamentally contrary to the concept of private property ownership because property taxes result in a permanent rent payment obligation. Meaning: Real property is not really "owned" by individuals. Property taxes do not need to be reduced (and, anyone who is trying to gain political favor using this reduction position should perhaps be viewed suspiciously) – Property taxes need to be completely eliminated!

  
  

• Another logical change to the current system that’s worth considering: Let’s say that property taxes are here to stay because people, for some reason, think they need to remain in place. Maybe it brings certain people some sort of comfort. Well, if that’s the case, then let’s make property taxes payable by property owners. “Property owners” means individuals and banks. For example, if you own your property outright (meaning there are no liens, bank loan payments due, etc.), then you pay 100% of the property taxes. But if you own 25% of your property (meaning a bank owns 75% of the principal/equity), then you pay 25% of the Property Taxes and the bank pays 75%. Can you imagine how quickly the whole game would change if banks had to foot the bill for a percentage of Property Taxes?! It’s fun to think about. Using the same logic, the bank in this example would also have to pony up for 75% of the home owner’s insurance policy payments, 75% of the maintenance costs, etc.

Some food for thought!

– TOP