End Property Taxes?
This is an excellent discussion by Jeff Childers about Florida and other states that keep moving slowly toward ending property taxes or making major tax reforms. Maybe some good ideas here for SD.
🚫 PROPERTY TAXES 🚫
A radical idea being tossed around in Florida is to recognize that private property owners actually own their property; it is not joint ownership with the government. Following is an excerpt from a March 20 article titled MONGOOSE LOVE, by Jeff Childers, who writes the fabulous blog Coffee&Covid a.k.a. C&C News. He says Florida is seriously examining how it could get rid of property taxes.
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Were this any other year, I’d have ignored this slow-burning story. But 2025 is becoming a year where anything seems possible, and the story keeps cropping back up. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran its latest article under the headline, “Florida Explores Ditching Property Tax as Home Prices Soar.”
The Journal reported that Florida lawmakers have filed dozens of bills, from proposals to end property taxes altogether to less ambitious tweaks that would provide at least some welcome relief to Sunshine State homeowners. The underlying problem, like during any inflationary period, is that wages (the ‘price’ of labor) haven’t kept up with the prices of everything else.
So, as estimated home prices soared, local governments eagerly amped up their tax appraisals, and now their bloated budgets are fatter than deer ticks. Florida cities are swimming in tax receipts and, predictably, they are funding every kind of lunatic social program you can think of.
The deplorable result is that, for many Floridians, their property taxes are starting to compete with their mortgage payments. It’s hitting everyone. Some clients with beachfront properties, for example, now pay annual property taxes in six figures, for unremarkable homes built over 50 years ago.
Enter Governor DeSantis. The world’s best Governor took up the cause last year. He’s been relentlessly calling for a constitutional amendment to nix property tax. Now several states, including Wyoming, Kansas and Montana, are currently considering significant property-tax bills.
But it’s not clear all voters think would be is a good idea. In November, North Dakota voters crushed a ballot measure that would have eliminated their property taxes.
Of course, North Dakotan property taxes are nowhere near as bad as Florida’s. You Dakotans haven’t felt the pain yet. The Journal reported that, in Florida, property tax receipts have doubled over the last ten years. Which means we are now paying twice as much, and I can assure you, it feels that way.
The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution prohibits taking private property for public use without just compensation. But courts covered for local governments by playing semantic games, deeming property taxes a “tax” and not a “taking.” Now, local governments can confiscate people’s property in slow motion, by degrees and increments, in a long series of razor cuts, through perpetual property taxation— free from legal consequences of calling the process a “taking.”
Think about it this way. If the government outright seized 1% of your home each year and sold that partial interest to Blackrock, that would clearly be an unconstitutional taking. Whereas if they just demand 1% of the property value in cash every year, but seize the entire thing if you can’t pay, the courts say well, that is completely different.
If it did happen, what would be a better way for local governments to pay for services? Well, how about a sales tax on property sales? I know that sounds horrible, but if you only had to pay once, instead of forever, it might be worth it. And even though the tax would prominently appear in annoying bold typeface at the bottom of every sales contract, you probably wouldn’t even really pay for it, since sellers would have to adjust property prices downwards to accommodate the built-in cost of the tax.
In that sense, both buyers and sellers would share in the initial tax burden, and people would actually own their homes instead of renting them from the county commission.
Anyway, I’m a lawyer, not a tax expert. A sales tax is just one idea. But ending property taxes would restore true property ownership, free us from being de facto tenants of the government, encourage local governments to run efficiently instead of sitting back and leeching off property owners, and the sales tax idea would make local taxation far more transparent and honest.
It’s already a totally bonkers year, let’s just go for it and end property taxes once and for all. Who’s with me?
Here is the entire story from which this is taken:
...ending property taxes would restore true property ownership, free us from being de facto tenants of the government, encourage local governments to run efficiently instead of sitting back and leeching off property owners… — Jeff Childers —
Could Placements of Family Cemeteries on Private Properties Relieve South Dakotans from Paying Property Taxes on Private Property?
Did You Know - South Dakota is one of many States that allow for persons to plat, use their own property as a "burial place" for your loved ones. And by using your own backyard as a "family cemetery", your land (property) will be tax exempt from property tax.
Every person, firm, or association, every church, religious or benevolent society, and private or public corporation, owning or having under his or its control, any cemetery or place of burial in this state, shall keep and maintain a uniform record of all burials, and shall by itself, his or its officers or agent, cause such cemetery or burial ground, or such portion thereof as may from time to time become necessary for that purpose, to be surveyed, mapped, or diagramed, and subdivided into sections, blocks, lots, individual grave spaces, avenues, walks, and streets, thereby platting or making a map or diagram thereof, which map or plat shall be filed, preserved, and maintained as a permanent cemetery record. Such plat or map, or copy thereof, shall be dated and endorsed by the person, firm, or agency drafting such plat or map, and duly filed in the office of the registrar of vital records of the registration district, wherein located, and shall become a permanent record in such office.- SDCL 34-27-8
The local registrar of vital records shall receive and file as a permanent record, the plat or map, or copy thereof, of each cemetery within his district as provided in this chapter; thereafter it shall be the duty of such registrar to regularly mark and designate upon each plat or map, the exact grave space of all subsequent burials within such cemetery, by using a uniform mark for all burials, a distinguishing and separate mark for the graves of veterans, and by inserting in such grave space, the burial or removal permit number, assigned to such burial at time of filing permit.
I dont think anyone has thought about it. Since 1950, it has not been popular. It was very popular all across America up until 1940's when states began passing laws trying to deceive people they had to own a Funeral Parlor. What does a funeral parlor do - sell caskets, burial plots, manage private land, funeral ceremonies, etc. They charge outrageous prices and fees for something that you could do for nearly nothing. Because you already own your small acreage of land, have a home on it, a garage, a small yard, you too could place a small family cemetery on your land and do the exact same thing as funeral parlors do. Remember, the funeral parlor is NOT tax exempt, it is the "Land" that holds the cemetery that is tax exempt. The Funeral Parlor is a "For Profit Enterprise" licensed by the State to conduct a business for profit - selling funeral supplies, equipment, casksets, grave sites, etc. Everything you already have the right to do.
Imagine, your family getting together, organizing your estate planning for the deaths of loved ones, what does it cost you to dig a 6 foot hole on your property? Nothing. What does it cost you to hire someone to build you a wooden box placing a small mattress, pillow inside preparing for the death of a loved one? What does it cost to pay the hospital to embalm your loved one, prepare to dress up that loved one (you can do it yourself by the way), etc. it costs you nothing to place a small burial location in your backyard. For doing so, imagine your land being tax exempt from property taxes, imagine the BANK not having the right to foreclose on your property due to the cemetery on the land, imagine honoring your loved ones by keeping them close to you at all times, maintaining their graves for as long as you may wish...What a great way to honor your loved ones but by keeping them on the very land, property they helped you take care of for years and years.
Somehow, we got away from doing all this ourselves....being told we had to spend thousands of dollars in preparation, but in reality, you had the right to do it yourself.
IF we want to fight property tax evaluations, this may be the way to do it. CITIES have no control over this....
What if people were to do this, this would be one way to force the city to cut their budget, cause properties would become tax exempt.
Property taxes = infinite rent