Property taxes are headed into major midterm elections ballot battles

When they head to the polls in November, Americans will have a rare opportunity to use their voting power to directly shape tax policy. Ballooning government spending and growing tax burdens across the U.S. have led to the inclusion of 26 ballot initiatives concerning tax rates across 13 states. For 128 million American voters, particularly working-class and middle-class individuals bearing a significant tax burden, these ballot measures will test voter moods on increased government spending, as well as where that spending should come from. 

While California’s Prop. 40, authorizing a one-time, 5% “wealth tax” on billionaire residents of the Golden State, has garnered the greatest amount of public attention, most ballot initiatives up for a vote this cycle do not expand upon current tax regimes. Rather, they serve as a means for rolling them back. In particular, state lawmakers have looked to scale back taxes on tens of millions of Americans’ most valuable asset – their home. 

Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Wyoming have proposals on the ballot that would significantly curb property tax expenditures. The means for doing so include increasing the property assessment threshold for existing tax exemptions, creating new exemptions for senior citizens, and, in the case of Tennessee, instilling outright prohibitions on state property taxes.  

“The property tax is the most egregious tax there is because you never own your property. You’re only paying rent to the government,” Tennessee State Senator Brent Taylor noted, when speaking in support of the state’s Amendment 2 prior to its first legislative passage in 2025. “And if you don’t think you’re just paying rent to the government, try not paying your property taxes.”

Tennessee does not currently have a state-level property tax and has not had one since 1949. In fact, most states don’t, as property taxes are largely administered by local governments who set tax rates based on market value and municipal budget needs. While Tennessee’s Amendment 2 is largely symbolic, simply eliminating the possibility of a state-imposed property tax, other ballot initiatives across the country carry a significant risk for these governments. As a result, homeowners, when casting their ballots, will be forced to juxtapose lowered personal expenditures against potentially damaging losses in local government revenue. 

Looking to influence the process from both sides, local political leaders have no shortage of disagreement about what should take precedent.

Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan, at the helm of Florida’s largest city, voiced her concerns when speaking about the state’s proposed Amendment 3, which would increase the maximum property assessment needed to qualify for the state’s homestead tax exemption from $150,000 to $250,000. That would result in a one-third reduction to the Jacksonville city budget, according to Deegan.

 “A $300 million…