By John Plecnik, an Affiliate Professor of Legislation at Cleveland State College and Lake County Commissioner
The time has come for Ohio to freeze, or on the very least cap, property tax values in between house gross sales, and enact a 100% property tax exemption for seniors.
As president of the Lake County Board of Commissioners, I lead the eleventh largest county in Ohio by inhabitants.
Because the new property tax values from the sexennial revaluation had been launched, it seems like all 232,000 of my constituents have reached out to me for assist. Households are preventing to outlive. The hire is, as they are saying, “too rattling excessive.” And seniors are being taxed out of their houses.
As a tax professor, I can inform you inflation and property taxes are the widespread denominator for all these issues. Evidently, owners are immediately impacted by increased property taxes, however tenants are harm too. Landlords cross on the price of property taxes to tenants within the type of increased hire.
Within the wake of the best inflation in 40 years, Ohio is not politely asking. Ohio is demanding property tax reduction.
As a tax professor, I remind my college students that each main tax system has two important options: tax fee and tax base. The tax fee is the share we pay. The tax base is what we pay taxes on. On the planet of property taxes, a patchwork of native governments set your tax fee via approving and passing property tax levies. Though this patchwork consists of all the things from public libraries to townships, the vast majority of your tax fee is attributable to your native public faculty district.
However your tax fee is barely half the story.
The Ohio Basic Meeting units the method by which we calculate the tax base, which is best often called your house’s appraised worth. Presently, this method requires appraised values to rise with inflation, imposing a phantom tax for unrealized beneficial properties on each house and property proprietor. This phantom tax is essentially unfair to all Ohioans. Nonetheless, it’s a clear and current hazard to seniors, disabled veterans and everybody else on a hard and fast revenue.
In the end, there are solely two methods to legislate property tax reduction.
Regionally, your faculty board members have the ability to decrease your tax fee. Statewide, your state representatives and senators have the ability to freeze, cap, decrease, circuit break and even exempt your tax base. Sure, you heard it right here first. The 2 strongest public workplaces within the state of Ohio with respect to property taxes are faculty board and state legislator.
Sadly, most faculty boards have declined to take any motion in any way with respect to their ballooning property tax collections.
In distinction, I give credit score to the Ohio Basic Meeting for voting to type the Joint Committee on Property Tax Evaluate and Reform as a part of the state working finances final yr. Since then, over a dozen payments on property tax reform had been proposed. Nonetheless, to this point, no significant reforms have handed.
I’m writing now with the honest hope the Ohio Basic Meeting will take motion earlier than property taxes are due subsequent yr. Particularly, on behalf of my neighbors in Lake County and all of Ohio, I’m asking our state representatives and senators to freeze property tax values in between house gross sales, or within the various, undertake a cap on these values, similar to Florida’s “Save our Houses” regulation.
I’m additionally asking for actual compassion for our seniors on fastened incomes. Please discover it in your hearts to grant them a 100% exemption from property taxes on their principal residence. After faithfully paying their taxes for 65 years, each senior has already paid their fair proportion after which some.
