PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

I read a recent article with the intriguing title of “Sold in Secret, Taxed in the Dark: Why Off-Market Home Sales May Be Raising Your Property Taxes”. The author stated: “Your neighbor’s home sale generates valuable information that can help determine your home’s value, even your property tax bill. But what happens when that home is sold in secret?

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It’s an overlooked question inside the national fight over private listings - a debate that has inspired laws restricting the practice in Washington, Connecticut, and Wisconsin, as well as a recently passed proposal in New York that now awaits Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature.

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• Property taxes currently generate 70 percent of all local tax revenue, some or all of which would have to be replaced with other taxes under property tax repeal.
• Replacing the property tax with newly granted local taxing authority is exceedingly difficult, because local sales and income tax bases vary widely across jurisdictions; there may, for instance, be no feasible sales tax rate by which an agricultural county or bedroom community could replace its property tax revenue.
• Backfilling forgone local property tax revenue through new state taxes is difficult because it dramatically shifts overall tax burdens, undermines local accountability, and cannot easily adjust for changing population mixes.
• All revenue alternatives are less conducive to economic growth than the existing property tax regime, but some transfer regimes are sharply degrowth.