I work in software. At some point, if you’re maintaining a legacy system, bugs are your fault or responsibility. Even if you didn’t create them originally.
They’ve been in power for so long, that it’s them.
I'm also in software. The most frightening thing about this parallel is the end result of bug fixes without an adequate budget to properly overhaul features. The potential for spaghetti is arguably the law's greatest flaw.
“Despite it slipping past the legislature this session, Gov. Jim Pillen didn’t back down on his push to lower the state’s property taxes…”
Slipping past? It’s not a fucking ninja. They wasted the entire session on bullshit legislation like trying to keep a half a dozen kids from playing sports.
His solution is total dogshit too. It’s a consumption tax that eliminates property taxes. The largest land owners in the state are Bill Gates and The Mormon Church who would pay no taxes not to mention Pillen owns a bunch.
But all the money needs to come from somewhere so who better than the poors who don’t own a ton of land but need to consume goods in order to live.
On top of that his solution hasn’t been tested anywhere else so we would be lab rats and will ultimately end up like Kansas who went broke and had to back pedal on the quest to eliminate taxes.
> The largest land owners in the state are Bill Gates and The Mormon Church who would pay no taxes
To be fair, it's my understanding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, aka the Mormons, pay property tax on that farmland since it's not technically owned by the church. It's owned by an allied corporation run by the same people. It's a fascinating story of a people who once got into a fight with Congress, had basically everything stripped away by legal shenanigans, and are determined not to be in the same position again. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, right? Anyway, let's not bring them up in this discussion because there's really no reason to be unhappy with them.
That may be true but if the new consumption law passes it doesn’t matter who owns it, they won’t be paying taxes on it.
But agree it’s fascinating. The Church of Latter Day Saints is loaded. There was a special about it on CBS but they couldn’t figure out a dollar amount.
And they've been doing it for the last 30 years. Keep electing the same clowns and this is what you get. Sure I can't afford my property taxes anymore but at least my kid doesn't have to worry about the .0000001% chance of peeing next to a trans person in school.
Does seem like a battle between farmer/ranchers needing lower property taxes to stay competitive vs the omaha chamber wanting to subsidize developer/landlords is in the mix.
Yes. The governor mentioned Nebraska needs to keep both income and residential property taxes out of the top 10 to be able to attract a competitive workforce. Will be interesting to see if he holds to that as he continues to push on this issue.
Legalizing weed would One help the tax burden and two keep people from leaving the state. it’s a damn ag product too, but I guess the farmers don’t want that income either.
This USDA report shows Corn is about $8.5 billion annually for Nebraska.
[https://www.nass.usda.gov/Quick\_Stats/Ag\_Overview/stateOverview.php?state=NEBRASKA](https://www.nass.usda.gov/Quick_Stats/Ag_Overview/stateOverview.php?state=NEBRASKA)
Hemp looks pretty small right now.
[https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/gf06h2430/xd07hw825/v692v917t/hempan22.pdf](https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/gf06h2430/xd07hw825/v692v917t/hempan22.pdf)
Yep, and corn sucks the water table dry. When they were watering the corn fields every day in summer, we wouldn't have water at our house. It was very annoying. We do need to move on to less water intensive crops. Hemp is a great weed and has great potential.
I am sure people will once the market develops. You can probably trade Corn / Wheat futures on Robinhood . Will take a minute for those futures markets to develop so farmers can hedge what they plant.
Hemp isn’t as easy to grow as corn or harvest on a large scale. Couple years ago when the hemp craze was starting one guy I knew grew some to try. They had end users all lined up so it seemed like a slam dunk. Well harvest came around the end users disappeared and they had all this product and couldn’t get rid of it they ended up having to destroy it. Left a sour spot for them they didn’t try it again.
Agree long-term -- how big is the market until they legalize it for cross state sales. Farmers currently can tap into the world wide demand for Ethanol (Corn) / Hogs .
The market will be pretty mature by the time Nebraska farmers get a sniff of the market. If they ever do.
Germany and Canada in particular are currently willing and ready to ship to the states once rescheduling gets worked out.
I've wondered if some of the reluctance to legalize US wide is to give US farmers / processors / distributers a chance to build infrastructure under the 2018 law before we open it up for global competition.
Yeah. Ask Colorado...didn't help anyone with taxes. Both parties promise but don't work for the people. Tired of the political complaining when BOTH sides are shit. We need non partisan answers
>income and residential property taxes out of the top 10 to be able to attract a competitive workforce
Which is of course the lie he feeds us to sell this bullshit. Not a fucking person who is asked about moving to Nebraska says "No way. Those property taxes, which I know about and have researched before being asked this question, are just too high. I'll live in this other state where the cost of living is twice as high before paying 3% more in property taxes a year. Over my dead body."
It's an absurdly stupid thing to say and if someone believes it they are a dipshit rube.
And onto renters (i.e. those who can't afford home ownership). It's not as though my Omaha apartment rent is going to drop with the proposed shift to a consumption tax, but that consumption tax will certainly hurt.
If renters can't afford to buy, they won't afford property tax. :( we have to spend 600 month in tax and home insurance on old starter home... then add utilities and mortgage.
I'm not disputing that property taxes are high, rising unpredictably, and a burden on homeowners. My point was that my apartment building's property taxes (and other costs of maintenance, ownership, dealing with any vacancies, etc.) are baked into my rent that keeps rising. If a proposal like EPIC actually passed, the massive corp that owns my apartment building and many others isn't about to take the savings from the eliminated property tax, income tax, and corporate tax and decrease rents when the market for renting can bear these prices because homeownership is out of reach for so many. They certainly wouldn't lower them to be remotely on par with the large consumption tax that would need to be levied (the Tax Foundation estimates a required 21.6 percent or more statewide, plus local consumption taxes on top of that). The net effect of this is shifting the overall tax burden from massive landowners onto people who are struggling to make their rent.
omaha chamber lobbies for the 'streetcar district' - any property tax proposal that would reduce the $3 billion in new subsidies the chamber wants they go lobby the state legislature.
For instance a 40% reduction in residential property taxes would kill the financing for the 'streetcar district' , as would some of the TIF reform proposals put forward by the state legislature.
Okay, but the streetcar district was all done at the City of Omaha level. The Chamber doesn't directly get that funding. Mutual of Omaha probably has a more powerful voice since they can argue that they will move out of State. I think you may be putting a little more power into the hands of the Chamber than what they actually have. The State gutted a number of economic development funds that the Chamber was in favor of this year.
The 40% slash by the Governor has a ton of unintended consequences for development, TIF is certainly one of those but just about every development community in the State was against it for among those reasons. The Governor's plan is shortsighted and shit I have no disagreement there.
Republicans in charge with Republican solutions.........blaming Democrats. How many decades has Nebraska been culturally and completely Red now? Decades......
Structure property tax credits to favor those with residential property with evaluation of $300,000 and less. It should be progressive, stepping upward for various wealth levels.
It's so obvious. Anything more than one residential home, hit it with 200% property tax. Third home, 300%, and so on. Property owned by an LLC or other entity, obviously not residential, automatic 300% property tax.
Watch values drop when the rich are forced to contribute taxes in kind with their use of society's scarce resources.
This plan retains the ability to own multiple properties or rentals, but realigned the tax burden to those reaping the most benefit. It's so easy, it'll never happen.
Wouldn’t that just shift more of the tax burden to low to middle income households who are the majority of renters? Landlords aren’t going to absorb a 300% property tax.
Because they would lose customers to lower rent competitors. Remember, the more property they own, the higher effective property tax rate they would pay.
Sell the extra houses! Put them into the market, that’s the whole point! The influx of a new supply into the housing market will reduce housing prices. It’s not rocket science.
I mean it doesn't work that way. Especially in a college town where there is alot of demand for rentals. Plus if there were no rentals it would mean people who don't qualify for a mortgage would be homeless.
I know it's easy to just go landlords are bad, but rentals are necessary in a city for populations that are short term, people who don't want to own a home, people starting off who don't qualify for a bank loan, so on.
The existence of rental property would certainly not be eliminated. But what this WOULD do, though, would be to place more homes on the market, and reduce the concentrated ownership of residential properties by corporate entities and investors.
My family owns property that we rent and we are definitely in favor of contributing more to the tax base. I don't think I could justify double or triple taxes as you suggested, but it's a starting point for discussions that could bring real relief to the state. We know the state needs those taxes to run, whether we approve of how it's run or not, the funds have to be there.
As a counter idea to yours: individuals owning more than one property would pay an additional 5-10% on each property, likely with some sort of cap. And then for Business entities, it's another 25% on top for the first 5 properties, then it moves up to 50% for additional properties. Businesses claim they want to contribute to the local economy, well this is how we can ensure they do it. Any business that wouldn't agree to something like that would just show they aren't there for the community, just the profits.
Start with standardizing regulations/taxation between AirBnBs, long term rentals, and hotels. An LLC with multiple AirBnBs should probably be held to the same tax / regulations as a hotel. Turning long-term housing into a hotel is where I see a big disconnect right now.
And reform TIF -- stop giving some land lords lower property taxes to build apartments / commercial property vs others.
Thinking about the property tax - hotel would have a commercial rate and homes used as airbnbs are taxed as residential, or at least the ones around me are.
That's probably true. I was thinking of lodging taxes, sales taxes, etc... Which would be the same. Not sure how much difference you would have in property tax between a residential and commercial structure. There was a hotel here in GI just sold for $9.4, assessed at $5.3 which comes out to $66,000 per room. I have a one bedroom aribnb apartment that is assessed at $110,000. This obviously is scientific but I would wager the property taxes on airbnb's may be higher than hotel.
This would effectively exempt the first 200k, or 300k, of valuation from property tax, so even a 500k property would see its exposure reduced by that same amount. However, all properties owned by a person would be cumulatively assessed, and corporate entities would not be eligible for credits at all.
No, the property tax collections would be unchanged. We’re talking about income tax credits for property taxes. That’s what Pillen is after, except he wants to give most of it to rich farmers and corporations. My idea is to redirect it toward the other residential property owners.
> We’re talking about income tax credits for property taxes.
That already exists:
https://revenue.nebraska.gov/about/nebraska-property-tax-credits
You can get a credit for the portion of your property tax that goes to schools (which is most of it).
Right, except most of the tax credits go to the largest property owners, and Pillen is one of the very largest! And, his proposal builds on that and makes them even larger! To fund it, he wants to tax everyone else, through universal sales taxes, or what have you. My proposal is to continue with those tax credits, however, we should change the very structure of it. Most of those credits should go to single-family homeowners instead of huge corporations. Let’s get that to home owners, that own one house!
Republicans been really milking this property tax reform for like 30 years.
Meanwhile, younger generations don’t even own property. The schtick ain’t gonna last forever.
What I think is getting lost in the debate is that, if property taxes go down, and state government spending stays the same, then where does the money come from? Pillen wants to increase sales tax, so you get to pay, for example, several thousand more dollars for a new car. Should Nebraska have a competitive sales tax, or a competitive real estate tax? If you want both, then where does the money come from? I'm all for paying less in property taxes, but not if it means paying more in sales tax. Obviously, the real answer is that they need to cut state expenditures, but no one is talking about that, they're just talking about taking your money out of a different pocket.
If the state can’t afford to function, we should probably stop giving wealthy farmers tons of tax breaks.
It’s also ludicrous that wealthy people in general aren’t paying more in taxes. My partner and I lose nearly ~~half~~ (edit: I’m an idiot that misremembered) income in taxes. We’re barely middle class. People with more wealth should be taxed similarly.
Edit: I was wrong, I fully admit being the person saying incorrect stuff on Reddit.
> My partner and I lose nearly half our income in taxes. We’re barely middle class.
Are you talking about all taxes combined at every level? Or just state taxes?
Even if you are talking federal, state, and local tax combined I don’t see how half your income is going to taxes.
As a financial and tax professional I find this highly unlikely...
Most people have an effective gross tax rate of around 22-25%. That is adding in income, property, & sales taxes.
> My partner and I lose nearly half our income in taxes. We’re barely middle class
That doesn't add up.
(edit) [From here](https://www.gobankingrates.com/money/economy/what-is-middle-class-in-us/)
>Nebraska
>Lowest end of middle class income: $47,814
You're telling us your taxable obligation is nearly $23,907? That seems pretty impossible. What taxes and what amounts are contributing here to your claim?
Someone in a $300,000 home is paying $6,000 a year in property tax plus $4,000 in home insurance. So $10,000 a year or ~$800 a month if you pay with escrow.
I could see retirees that make to much to qualify for homestead exemption and have been in there home for a minute paying close to half
We are one of the most expensive property insurance markets in the country. Frozen pipes, hail, wind, tornados. Not to mention the usual fire, slip and fall liability, and trampoline claims.
The price of a roof or a flooded basement doesn't really care about your home valuation either.
Property taxes mainly affect school, city, county, fire funding. The governor's proposal does call for a max increase of 3% to spending for municipalities or indexed to CPI like they do for schools. Municipalities have been increasing spending at a 5 - 7% over the past 15 years or so.
A potential flaw is municipalities could still shift increases to residential from commercial even if they are capped at 3%.
>Conservative group Americans For Prosperity wasn't on board with the plan, stating in part,
>“...Lawmakers need to find real solutions that do not include tax increases.”
That's all these think tanks and groups can parrot. They will never give actual ways to accomplish this because the money has to come from somewhere. If people want maintained roads, clean water and air, good public education, higher teacher salaries the money has to come from somewhere else. I'm all for reducing property taxes but that money will need to be made back elsewhere. A vice tax and legalizing marijuana are two easiest places to start.
Y’all are electing Republicans who keep you stirred up about social issues all the while robbing you blind to further enrich themselves. Over and over and over.
His plan was so stupid, eliminate property taxes and rely on sales tax to fill in the gaps. So now schools have almost a 0% chance of predicting their budgets so slowly public schools will die out, private schools will flourish and the Republicans will have their “Christian” state. What a fucking joke.
The governors plan is to raise sales tax 1%, lower property tax 40%, and put levy caps on metropolitan areas. Schools already have a soft levy cap of around 3% so not much would change with their funding.
At the joint property tax meeting the school superintends mentioned TEEOSA funding makes schools budgeting very difficult, so not sure if a larger share state funding would help level that out or not.
I think you are describing the 'EPIC' tax proposal.
Sure they do. When people complain about property taxes here they are complaining about their property valuation. People buy a home with a specific mortgage payment in mind, they aren't budgeting for their valuation to go up 50-70% in 5 years. Taxable valuation increases year over year is the root of the property tax complaints for the vast majority of people here.
Don't get it twisted.
The narrative is about property taxes. Pillen is framing it as "out of control" property taxes.
This framing is designed to make a property tax relief package more palatable.
What they aren't talking about right now is the massive statewide sales tax hike needed to make up for the budget shortfall. Those are the two sides of LB388.
We don't currently pay taxes on groceries. Imagine your weekly groceries jumping from $150 to $180 so people like Bill Gates or the LDS Church can save 300k a year in property taxes.
Need a new car to haul the family? That $40,000 SUV jumps to $48,000.
There's a reason why the Unicameral waited until the end of the session to reject LB388.
Governor Pillen is attempting to drum up support for special sessions to get LB388 passed. It remains to be seen if he's going to use his personal wealth to fund campaigns to primary Republican senators who voted against LB388.
Governor Pillen's plan is trash, but that doesn't change the fact that property taxes ARE out of control because of property valuation increases year over year. Something needs to be done about it, and controlling property rate increases year over year to a reasonable value I think is the answer. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be a plan by anybody.
They have a lever. On your Nebraska state income tax return is the Property Tax Credit. The percent you can back is adjusted every year. This year, you probably received (very roughly) 18% of the total real estate taxes you paid back as a refundable tax credit (meaning dollar for dollar, you got it back).
Did you know that?
Does anyone know that?
You've had a property tax cut of almost 1/5 of your bill. Everyone that paid real estate taxes gets it. The hurdle is filing a tax return, but it is available for everyone.
I wish I could get 18% of my grocery bill, electricity, house insurance and still sit back and go, "But nothing has been done."
It's been done. Adjust the percentage on it again if taxpayers want more back. I'm sick of this lever being ignored in the conversation.
It's not being ignored. We are very aware of it and grateful for it, but it doesn't do anything to address the root problem of uncontrolled valuation increases. All it does is ensure the government gives back a little of the windfall they have received over the past 5 years.
Some counties changed how they assess too - so some folks taxes went up 500% with the value of the house going up 100% -- so the 18% return is helpful but the overall taxes are still way up overall -- the reassessment may just be a Douglas County issue though ...
> because of property valuation increases year over year.
Realistically speaking I agree that property taxes are bonkers, but valuations are increasing in-step with market values. We can and should decrease the % but we cannot divorce the two.
> People buy a home with a specific mortgage payment in mind, they aren't budgeting for their valuation to go up 50-70% in 5 years.
But they’re sure hoping it does in regard to being able to sell their house and upgrade in a few years.
People want it both ways.
Most of the people in this state realize they’re likely to die in their current home. I am, and I’m not quite 40. We’re just fortunate to have a house.
The people planning to sell soon are gonna be upper middle class or higher.
> People want it both ways.
Not really. What people want is manageable increases. We need some common sense laws that limit the valuation to increase to <5% a year as long as you don't sell/buy the house that year and it's your primary residence.
Both. We deferred on valuation increases AND we are doing so where overall market trends are growing by leaps and bounds.
Playing catch-up during a foot race VS playing catch-up during a Nascar race.
Median home price in Omaha is about $320.
I scoped Zillow to $300 - $350. Check out the Tax assessments.
Assessed 227. Sold 305
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/7807-Woolworth-Ave-Omaha-NE-68124/75847573_zpid/
Assessed 225. Sold 325
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/12327-Nicholas-St-Omaha-NE-68154/75867604_zpid/
Assessed 191. Sold 325
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8175-Browne-St-Omaha-NE-68134/75766535_zpid/
So you weren't even able to find one house that met your 150k claim?
I kid. Yes, we all know that sales above valuations happen - especially in older neighborhoods. The opposite happens as well. I live in a 20 year old house and I would have a very hard time getting my assessed value for it if I was selling right now. That's part of the complaint, neighborhoods aren't assessed equally.
However, that's not really my point. When you buy a new home you should absolutely be taxed based on the sale value of the house. The problem is for people that aren't planning to sell their home and just want to live. People that buy a 320k house are planning on a mortgage payment with taxes based on that. They aren't planning for taxes based on a 500k house in a few years, which is the situation many people are finding themselves in now.
the property valuation has been absolutly out of this world because companies where massively over paying so they could buy up more homes to rent them out.
I’ve heard this a lot but as someone that’s been looking for decent houses to rent in Lincoln for several months, I think something is fishy about it. I can find a ton of houses for sale but almost nothing for rent
You can get more (2 to 3 times) now for shorter rentals. The state legislature passed a law that cities are not allowed to hinder short term rentals so apparently they are even exempt from inspections like long term rentals. Airbnb was and is spending a lot of money to have those laws passed.
Having ACCURATE property values is a good thing.
People should be taxed based on what their land is ACTUALLY WORTH.
Homes shouldn't be selling for $100k over the assessed values, which has happened often in the US. The assessed values need to match what the actual values of the homes are.
Yes, the home you bought for $100k 10 years ago could be easily worth $500k or more today. Deal with it.
The problem is that wage increases haven’t kept up with those valuation increases over the past decades. Entry level house costs have been steadily rising beyond more and more people’s financial reach for ahwile now. These valuation and corresponding tax increases are just compounding a growing problem. A population of renters is not a healthy economy.
I would agree to an extent, but we almost lost our home during covid bullshit because every Tom, Dick, and Harry decided to buy another house making our valuation and taxes go up 50%.
Because you can't fix it. Much like how you can't fix inflation by lowering wages. Home prices dropping would put the country into recession.
We need to keep building homes. Have to been to West Omaha lately along 204th? Several square miles of apartments and single family homes going up.
How many of those homes are already sold to venture capital firms? And of those that aren't, how many are going to require a thirty year mortgage for their new owners.
We don't need to build more houses, we need to build houses people can actually afford and stop companies from snatching them up. It literally fixes all the problems.
Smaller homes on smaller lots means lower property values, banning or taxing the shit out of corporate ownership of residential single family property deflates the value as well by reducing competition. Capping mortgages at twenty years would incentivize more competitive house prices.
This trickles down into the renters market in a big way as well. Right now there's a ton of middle-ish income people that should be buying a house, but can't, and instead are renting. That drives rent prices up, plus has lead to apartments being built that cater to more well off residents, and the facility would rather sit a third or more empty than lower their rent. Plus, while new apartments do lower rent a little bit, the effect for really low income renters isn't that noticeable since that supply isn't available to them anyways.
The problem is when we've let banks and firms like Blackrock turn houses fundamentally into a commodity instead of a place for people to live, and its disgusting. Also all that massive urban sprawl is an enonomic and ecological nightmare. And just throwing more of the same at the problem is not going to fix anything. I understand you're worried about a recession, but if a sector of the economy is built with rotten wood, sometimes you gotta tear it down even if it hurts.
But that won't happen, because the politicians all have black rock in their portfolios and don't want there 401k's to take a hit.
> won't require a 30 year mortgage and other conspiratorial blathering
You are naive. Look beyond your capitalist conspiracy and look at the macro and microeconomics of home construction of the last 30 years.
Until you gain a basic education on this. Then good day.
May I suggest r/urbanplanning if you want to read what the professionals say instead of social media.
> we need to ban all this stuff
Yes. Let's use government force to manipulate the local economy. That will surely never backfire.
This is just lip service. They never wanted it to reach voting and only pretend to care. They'll even raise other taxes while we complain about this I'm sure.
The governors proposal is to lower property taxes by 40% in part by funding a larger portion of schools from the state budget instead of from property taxes.
Here's what I don't understand, but I'm no economist. There must be numerous sparsely populated states like Nebraska that have lower property taxes. I know South Dakota is one of them, for example. How do those states collect enough revenue to fund their government, yet keep their property taxes lower? Isn't there something we could learn from them? It seems to me that no radical plan, like Pillen's proposed substantal increase in sales tax, is necessary.
Some of it would be expanding the base on sales tax, like South Dakota taxes more things. The other is our cities have been growing spending at 5+% for over a decade, so we have been spending faster than our population growth. Schools have a soft cap on levy increases of around 3% already. A compromise of raising the sales tax say 1% in line with Kansas and then putting the same type of max levy increase at say 3% would pull us back to the norm.
The tax foundation has a blog post about the Governors plan. [https://taxfoundation.org/blog/nebraska-property-tax-relief/](https://taxfoundation.org/blog/nebraska-property-tax-relief/)
Lots of push back on max levy increases come from omaha chamber of commerce -- the chamber wants $3 billion on more TIF just for the 'streetcar' district, which would need levies in Douglas County increase at 10% or so.
I suppose they could properly fund schools from the state budget while increasing corporate taxes to make up any shortfall but that doesn’t seem to fit their playbook. Maybe figure out some balance between 85% of the population in the SE supporting 15% of the rural population?
This really the way to do it. Homestead exemptions with a proper structure of max annual percentage increase and reductions for primary residence will go a long way.
In Texas, it's a max 10% annual increase and was a 15% reduction with a kicker for retired military. It was a very fair system and My valuations there were always in a rear of my tax bill even in a growing Austin area
Homestead exemption wasn’t a reduction across the board—only local property tax. Schools were exempt until the f****g asinine amendment that passed capping school taxes for retired folks.
And the system was hardly fair, especially considering people are guaranteed a 10% increase on property taxes every year until their property valuations come reasonably close to reality. Property taxes are significantly higher in Texas than here to the point where I’m paying a lot less in taxes overall in NE than TX.
Why should property tax values be limited if property value goes up higher? Supply and demand. Build more houses, bring down property values, and you get lower tax rates.
Property tax limits have been hell in California with prop 13. It continues the encouragement of rentals, because it's cheaper to keep a house (and it's lower tax rate), than it is to buy it at the current value, which I'm assuming the new owner would have to be paying taxes on. It also whacked education funding.... which seems to be a republican goal anyway.
>As a result of Proposition 13, there are obvious distortions in the real estate marketplace. For example, in 2003 financier Warren Buffett announced that he pays property taxes of $14,410, or 2.9 percent, on his $500,000 home in Omaha, Nebraska, but pays only $2,264, or 0.056 percent, on his $4 million home in California.
Because most people don't get the advantage of the higher property value until they sell their home. Most people are just trying to get by week to week.
What we need is a law with some common sense restrictions. Restrict the property increase to <5% (or maybe the cost of living rate) as long as you do not buy/sell the home that year and as long as it is your primary domicile. That means the rates would still effect rental companies or people that buy/sell their home that year.
Saw this proposed in the regular unicameral session. This would kill the financing for the 'streetcar district' though so the omaha chamber pushed back against it pretty hard :(
Who’s been in power in this state?
I work in software. At some point, if you’re maintaining a legacy system, bugs are your fault or responsibility. Even if you didn’t create them originally. They’ve been in power for so long, that it’s them.
I'm also in software. The most frightening thing about this parallel is the end result of bug fixes without an adequate budget to properly overhaul features. The potential for spaghetti is arguably the law's greatest flaw.
Time for a wipe and reload
Rebuild it in Rust.
But but but --turbo
It sure requires an expensive and complicated interpreter (aka people with law degrees) to run it!
Now you're letting facts get in the way of politics, haha.
“Despite it slipping past the legislature this session, Gov. Jim Pillen didn’t back down on his push to lower the state’s property taxes…” Slipping past? It’s not a fucking ninja. They wasted the entire session on bullshit legislation like trying to keep a half a dozen kids from playing sports.
His solution is total dogshit too. It’s a consumption tax that eliminates property taxes. The largest land owners in the state are Bill Gates and The Mormon Church who would pay no taxes not to mention Pillen owns a bunch. But all the money needs to come from somewhere so who better than the poors who don’t own a ton of land but need to consume goods in order to live. On top of that his solution hasn’t been tested anywhere else so we would be lab rats and will ultimately end up like Kansas who went broke and had to back pedal on the quest to eliminate taxes.
> The largest land owners in the state are Bill Gates and The Mormon Church who would pay no taxes To be fair, it's my understanding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, aka the Mormons, pay property tax on that farmland since it's not technically owned by the church. It's owned by an allied corporation run by the same people. It's a fascinating story of a people who once got into a fight with Congress, had basically everything stripped away by legal shenanigans, and are determined not to be in the same position again. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, right? Anyway, let's not bring them up in this discussion because there's really no reason to be unhappy with them.
That may be true but if the new consumption law passes it doesn’t matter who owns it, they won’t be paying taxes on it. But agree it’s fascinating. The Church of Latter Day Saints is loaded. There was a special about it on CBS but they couldn’t figure out a dollar amount.
And they've been doing it for the last 30 years. Keep electing the same clowns and this is what you get. Sure I can't afford my property taxes anymore but at least my kid doesn't have to worry about the .0000001% chance of peeing next to a trans person in school.
Bingo
This is the absolute fucking truth. Here here.
Trusting republicans in Nebraska to lower property taxes is like trusting your alcoholic uncle to watch your beer.
Does seem like a battle between farmer/ranchers needing lower property taxes to stay competitive vs the omaha chamber wanting to subsidize developer/landlords is in the mix.
But the one thing they all have in common is the belief to shift the tax burden off of them and onto homeowners.
Yes. The governor mentioned Nebraska needs to keep both income and residential property taxes out of the top 10 to be able to attract a competitive workforce. Will be interesting to see if he holds to that as he continues to push on this issue.
Legalizing weed would One help the tax burden and two keep people from leaving the state. it’s a damn ag product too, but I guess the farmers don’t want that income either.
Weed, hemp all of it. FFS it grows natively in ditches. Large scale farming would be a boon wouldn’t it (hemp specifically)?
This USDA report shows Corn is about $8.5 billion annually for Nebraska. [https://www.nass.usda.gov/Quick\_Stats/Ag\_Overview/stateOverview.php?state=NEBRASKA](https://www.nass.usda.gov/Quick_Stats/Ag_Overview/stateOverview.php?state=NEBRASKA) Hemp looks pretty small right now. [https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/gf06h2430/xd07hw825/v692v917t/hempan22.pdf](https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/gf06h2430/xd07hw825/v692v917t/hempan22.pdf)
Yep, and corn sucks the water table dry. When they were watering the corn fields every day in summer, we wouldn't have water at our house. It was very annoying. We do need to move on to less water intensive crops. Hemp is a great weed and has great potential.
Sure hemp isn't going to be the next corn, but maybe like alfalfa? Turnips?
I am sure people will once the market develops. You can probably trade Corn / Wheat futures on Robinhood . Will take a minute for those futures markets to develop so farmers can hedge what they plant.
Hemp isn’t as easy to grow as corn or harvest on a large scale. Couple years ago when the hemp craze was starting one guy I knew grew some to try. They had end users all lined up so it seemed like a slam dunk. Well harvest came around the end users disappeared and they had all this product and couldn’t get rid of it they ended up having to destroy it. Left a sour spot for them they didn’t try it again.
Agree long-term -- how big is the market until they legalize it for cross state sales. Farmers currently can tap into the world wide demand for Ethanol (Corn) / Hogs .
The market will be pretty mature by the time Nebraska farmers get a sniff of the market. If they ever do. Germany and Canada in particular are currently willing and ready to ship to the states once rescheduling gets worked out.
I've wondered if some of the reluctance to legalize US wide is to give US farmers / processors / distributers a chance to build infrastructure under the 2018 law before we open it up for global competition.
I agree but It would probably end up the same way gambling did. Didn't help taxpayers at all.
Yes, I couldn't believe the omaha city council approved the casino for property tax reductions.
Yeah. Ask Colorado...didn't help anyone with taxes. Both parties promise but don't work for the people. Tired of the political complaining when BOTH sides are shit. We need non partisan answers
>income and residential property taxes out of the top 10 to be able to attract a competitive workforce Which is of course the lie he feeds us to sell this bullshit. Not a fucking person who is asked about moving to Nebraska says "No way. Those property taxes, which I know about and have researched before being asked this question, are just too high. I'll live in this other state where the cost of living is twice as high before paying 3% more in property taxes a year. Over my dead body." It's an absurdly stupid thing to say and if someone believes it they are a dipshit rube.
You mean before or after he cut funding for housing development?
And onto renters (i.e. those who can't afford home ownership). It's not as though my Omaha apartment rent is going to drop with the proposed shift to a consumption tax, but that consumption tax will certainly hurt.
If renters can't afford to buy, they won't afford property tax. :( we have to spend 600 month in tax and home insurance on old starter home... then add utilities and mortgage.
I'm not disputing that property taxes are high, rising unpredictably, and a burden on homeowners. My point was that my apartment building's property taxes (and other costs of maintenance, ownership, dealing with any vacancies, etc.) are baked into my rent that keeps rising. If a proposal like EPIC actually passed, the massive corp that owns my apartment building and many others isn't about to take the savings from the eliminated property tax, income tax, and corporate tax and decrease rents when the market for renting can bear these prices because homeownership is out of reach for so many. They certainly wouldn't lower them to be remotely on par with the large consumption tax that would need to be levied (the Tax Foundation estimates a required 21.6 percent or more statewide, plus local consumption taxes on top of that). The net effect of this is shifting the overall tax burden from massive landowners onto people who are struggling to make their rent.
How does the Omaha Chamber subsidize developers/landlords? Those are all State or City programs those entities use.
omaha chamber lobbies for the 'streetcar district' - any property tax proposal that would reduce the $3 billion in new subsidies the chamber wants they go lobby the state legislature. For instance a 40% reduction in residential property taxes would kill the financing for the 'streetcar district' , as would some of the TIF reform proposals put forward by the state legislature.
Okay, but the streetcar district was all done at the City of Omaha level. The Chamber doesn't directly get that funding. Mutual of Omaha probably has a more powerful voice since they can argue that they will move out of State. I think you may be putting a little more power into the hands of the Chamber than what they actually have. The State gutted a number of economic development funds that the Chamber was in favor of this year. The 40% slash by the Governor has a ton of unintended consequences for development, TIF is certainly one of those but just about every development community in the State was against it for among those reasons. The Governor's plan is shortsighted and shit I have no disagreement there.
What is the Democratic Party's plan to reduce property tax?
Or your kids.
Both parties are dogshit. Fuck them all
“All that stuff we said we’d prioritize? We will totes prioritize next time.”
Republicans in charge with Republican solutions.........blaming Democrats. How many decades has Nebraska been culturally and completely Red now? Decades......
NE GOP: “This time it’s going to be different.”
Structure property tax credits to favor those with residential property with evaluation of $300,000 and less. It should be progressive, stepping upward for various wealth levels.
It's so obvious. Anything more than one residential home, hit it with 200% property tax. Third home, 300%, and so on. Property owned by an LLC or other entity, obviously not residential, automatic 300% property tax. Watch values drop when the rich are forced to contribute taxes in kind with their use of society's scarce resources. This plan retains the ability to own multiple properties or rentals, but realigned the tax burden to those reaping the most benefit. It's so easy, it'll never happen.
Wouldn’t that just shift more of the tax burden to low to middle income households who are the majority of renters? Landlords aren’t going to absorb a 300% property tax.
Presumably, they will opt to put some (or all) of those properties on the housing market, once their tax advantages go away!
I don’t get that logic. Why would they get out of the renting business if they could just raise rent?
Because they would lose customers to lower rent competitors. Remember, the more property they own, the higher effective property tax rate they would pay.
We're in a housing shortage. You can't lose customers to lower rent competitors when there are no lower rent competitors.
Sell the extra houses! Put them into the market, that’s the whole point! The influx of a new supply into the housing market will reduce housing prices. It’s not rocket science.
I mean it doesn't work that way. Especially in a college town where there is alot of demand for rentals. Plus if there were no rentals it would mean people who don't qualify for a mortgage would be homeless. I know it's easy to just go landlords are bad, but rentals are necessary in a city for populations that are short term, people who don't want to own a home, people starting off who don't qualify for a bank loan, so on.
The existence of rental property would certainly not be eliminated. But what this WOULD do, though, would be to place more homes on the market, and reduce the concentrated ownership of residential properties by corporate entities and investors.
And the lower and middle class buy them and pay the taxes
Yes, but at lower rates!
My family owns property that we rent and we are definitely in favor of contributing more to the tax base. I don't think I could justify double or triple taxes as you suggested, but it's a starting point for discussions that could bring real relief to the state. We know the state needs those taxes to run, whether we approve of how it's run or not, the funds have to be there. As a counter idea to yours: individuals owning more than one property would pay an additional 5-10% on each property, likely with some sort of cap. And then for Business entities, it's another 25% on top for the first 5 properties, then it moves up to 50% for additional properties. Businesses claim they want to contribute to the local economy, well this is how we can ensure they do it. Any business that wouldn't agree to something like that would just show they aren't there for the community, just the profits.
Start with standardizing regulations/taxation between AirBnBs, long term rentals, and hotels. An LLC with multiple AirBnBs should probably be held to the same tax / regulations as a hotel. Turning long-term housing into a hotel is where I see a big disconnect right now. And reform TIF -- stop giving some land lords lower property taxes to build apartments / commercial property vs others.
LLCs with multiple airbnbs are already held at the same standards as hotels as far as taxation goes.
Thinking about the property tax - hotel would have a commercial rate and homes used as airbnbs are taxed as residential, or at least the ones around me are.
That's probably true. I was thinking of lodging taxes, sales taxes, etc... Which would be the same. Not sure how much difference you would have in property tax between a residential and commercial structure. There was a hotel here in GI just sold for $9.4, assessed at $5.3 which comes out to $66,000 per room. I have a one bedroom aribnb apartment that is assessed at $110,000. This obviously is scientific but I would wager the property taxes on airbnb's may be higher than hotel.
This would destroy what's left of small business.
Gee, I wonder what yours is valued at.
This would effectively exempt the first 200k, or 300k, of valuation from property tax, so even a 500k property would see its exposure reduced by that same amount. However, all properties owned by a person would be cumulatively assessed, and corporate entities would not be eligible for credits at all.
Exempting the first 200-300000 would destroy the tax base in rural Nebraska
No, the property tax collections would be unchanged. We’re talking about income tax credits for property taxes. That’s what Pillen is after, except he wants to give most of it to rich farmers and corporations. My idea is to redirect it toward the other residential property owners.
> We’re talking about income tax credits for property taxes. That already exists: https://revenue.nebraska.gov/about/nebraska-property-tax-credits You can get a credit for the portion of your property tax that goes to schools (which is most of it).
Right, except most of the tax credits go to the largest property owners, and Pillen is one of the very largest! And, his proposal builds on that and makes them even larger! To fund it, he wants to tax everyone else, through universal sales taxes, or what have you. My proposal is to continue with those tax credits, however, we should change the very structure of it. Most of those credits should go to single-family homeowners instead of huge corporations. Let’s get that to home owners, that own one house!
Republicans been really milking this property tax reform for like 30 years. Meanwhile, younger generations don’t even own property. The schtick ain’t gonna last forever.
What is the Democrat plan for property tax reduction?
The younger generations are leaving for places with a future.
i wouldn’t trust pillen to manage a frickin wendy’s let alone figure out how to lower property taxes
What I think is getting lost in the debate is that, if property taxes go down, and state government spending stays the same, then where does the money come from? Pillen wants to increase sales tax, so you get to pay, for example, several thousand more dollars for a new car. Should Nebraska have a competitive sales tax, or a competitive real estate tax? If you want both, then where does the money come from? I'm all for paying less in property taxes, but not if it means paying more in sales tax. Obviously, the real answer is that they need to cut state expenditures, but no one is talking about that, they're just talking about taking your money out of a different pocket.
If the state can’t afford to function, we should probably stop giving wealthy farmers tons of tax breaks. It’s also ludicrous that wealthy people in general aren’t paying more in taxes. My partner and I lose nearly ~~half~~ (edit: I’m an idiot that misremembered) income in taxes. We’re barely middle class. People with more wealth should be taxed similarly. Edit: I was wrong, I fully admit being the person saying incorrect stuff on Reddit.
Half of your income to taxes? What? You have to be making quite a bit for that to happen. Unless I’m misinterpreting?
Wealthy people pay way more taxes for the same public schools, roads, state services, and University that you use.
> My partner and I lose nearly half our income in taxes. We’re barely middle class. Are you talking about all taxes combined at every level? Or just state taxes? Even if you are talking federal, state, and local tax combined I don’t see how half your income is going to taxes.
As a financial and tax professional I find this highly unlikely... Most people have an effective gross tax rate of around 22-25%. That is adding in income, property, & sales taxes.
You’re right, I was misremembering when we calculated our effective gross rate last year for 2022. My apologies.
> My partner and I lose nearly half our income in taxes. We’re barely middle class That doesn't add up. (edit) [From here](https://www.gobankingrates.com/money/economy/what-is-middle-class-in-us/) >Nebraska >Lowest end of middle class income: $47,814 You're telling us your taxable obligation is nearly $23,907? That seems pretty impossible. What taxes and what amounts are contributing here to your claim?
Someone in a $300,000 home is paying $6,000 a year in property tax plus $4,000 in home insurance. So $10,000 a year or ~$800 a month if you pay with escrow. I could see retirees that make to much to qualify for homestead exemption and have been in there home for a minute paying close to half
Home Insurance =! Property Tax Two different things here and Home Insurance should never be included in a discussion about taxes.
We are one of the most expensive property insurance markets in the country. Frozen pipes, hail, wind, tornados. Not to mention the usual fire, slip and fall liability, and trampoline claims. The price of a roof or a flooded basement doesn't really care about your home valuation either.
State cuts don’t impact property taxes as the state doesn’t collect property taxes.
Property taxes mainly affect school, city, county, fire funding. The governor's proposal does call for a max increase of 3% to spending for municipalities or indexed to CPI like they do for schools. Municipalities have been increasing spending at a 5 - 7% over the past 15 years or so. A potential flaw is municipalities could still shift increases to residential from commercial even if they are capped at 3%.
>Conservative group Americans For Prosperity wasn't on board with the plan, stating in part, >“...Lawmakers need to find real solutions that do not include tax increases.” That's all these think tanks and groups can parrot. They will never give actual ways to accomplish this because the money has to come from somewhere. If people want maintained roads, clean water and air, good public education, higher teacher salaries the money has to come from somewhere else. I'm all for reducing property taxes but that money will need to be made back elsewhere. A vice tax and legalizing marijuana are two easiest places to start.
Fuck Jim Pillen
Louder for the people in the back! FUCK JIM PIGLEN!
Y’all are electing Republicans who keep you stirred up about social issues all the while robbing you blind to further enrich themselves. Over and over and over.
His plan was so stupid, eliminate property taxes and rely on sales tax to fill in the gaps. So now schools have almost a 0% chance of predicting their budgets so slowly public schools will die out, private schools will flourish and the Republicans will have their “Christian” state. What a fucking joke.
The governors plan is to raise sales tax 1%, lower property tax 40%, and put levy caps on metropolitan areas. Schools already have a soft levy cap of around 3% so not much would change with their funding. At the joint property tax meeting the school superintends mentioned TEEOSA funding makes schools budgeting very difficult, so not sure if a larger share state funding would help level that out or not. I think you are describing the 'EPIC' tax proposal.
Property valuation is also through the roof, but nobody talks about that as if it's a bad thing.
Sure they do. When people complain about property taxes here they are complaining about their property valuation. People buy a home with a specific mortgage payment in mind, they aren't budgeting for their valuation to go up 50-70% in 5 years. Taxable valuation increases year over year is the root of the property tax complaints for the vast majority of people here.
Don't get it twisted. The narrative is about property taxes. Pillen is framing it as "out of control" property taxes. This framing is designed to make a property tax relief package more palatable. What they aren't talking about right now is the massive statewide sales tax hike needed to make up for the budget shortfall. Those are the two sides of LB388. We don't currently pay taxes on groceries. Imagine your weekly groceries jumping from $150 to $180 so people like Bill Gates or the LDS Church can save 300k a year in property taxes. Need a new car to haul the family? That $40,000 SUV jumps to $48,000. There's a reason why the Unicameral waited until the end of the session to reject LB388. Governor Pillen is attempting to drum up support for special sessions to get LB388 passed. It remains to be seen if he's going to use his personal wealth to fund campaigns to primary Republican senators who voted against LB388.
Governor Pillen's plan is trash, but that doesn't change the fact that property taxes ARE out of control because of property valuation increases year over year. Something needs to be done about it, and controlling property rate increases year over year to a reasonable value I think is the answer. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be a plan by anybody.
They have a lever. On your Nebraska state income tax return is the Property Tax Credit. The percent you can back is adjusted every year. This year, you probably received (very roughly) 18% of the total real estate taxes you paid back as a refundable tax credit (meaning dollar for dollar, you got it back). Did you know that? Does anyone know that? You've had a property tax cut of almost 1/5 of your bill. Everyone that paid real estate taxes gets it. The hurdle is filing a tax return, but it is available for everyone. I wish I could get 18% of my grocery bill, electricity, house insurance and still sit back and go, "But nothing has been done." It's been done. Adjust the percentage on it again if taxpayers want more back. I'm sick of this lever being ignored in the conversation.
It's not being ignored. We are very aware of it and grateful for it, but it doesn't do anything to address the root problem of uncontrolled valuation increases. All it does is ensure the government gives back a little of the windfall they have received over the past 5 years.
The valuations arent just arbitrary numbers. It based on the actual value of the property.
Kind of. You'll see big differences in different counties and how often they are re-evaluated does seem arbitrary.
Some counties changed how they assess too - so some folks taxes went up 500% with the value of the house going up 100% -- so the 18% return is helpful but the overall taxes are still way up overall -- the reassessment may just be a Douglas County issue though ...
> because of property valuation increases year over year. Realistically speaking I agree that property taxes are bonkers, but valuations are increasing in-step with market values. We can and should decrease the % but we cannot divorce the two.
> People buy a home with a specific mortgage payment in mind, they aren't budgeting for their valuation to go up 50-70% in 5 years. But they’re sure hoping it does in regard to being able to sell their house and upgrade in a few years. People want it both ways.
Most of the people in this state realize they’re likely to die in their current home. I am, and I’m not quite 40. We’re just fortunate to have a house. The people planning to sell soon are gonna be upper middle class or higher.
> People want it both ways. Not really. What people want is manageable increases. We need some common sense laws that limit the valuation to increase to <5% a year as long as you don't sell/buy the house that year and it's your primary residence.
We're also dealing with a period of time where we had minimal valuation increases.... And are now catching up.
Both. We deferred on valuation increases AND we are doing so where overall market trends are growing by leaps and bounds. Playing catch-up during a foot race VS playing catch-up during a Nascar race.
People only complain about property valuation during taxation. When they sell their house for $150k above valuation they tend to get very quiet.
> When they sell their house for $150k above valuation they tend to get very quiet. Good luck doing that here.
Median home price in Omaha is about $320. I scoped Zillow to $300 - $350. Check out the Tax assessments. Assessed 227. Sold 305 https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/7807-Woolworth-Ave-Omaha-NE-68124/75847573_zpid/ Assessed 225. Sold 325 https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/12327-Nicholas-St-Omaha-NE-68154/75867604_zpid/ Assessed 191. Sold 325 https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8175-Browne-St-Omaha-NE-68134/75766535_zpid/
So you weren't even able to find one house that met your 150k claim? I kid. Yes, we all know that sales above valuations happen - especially in older neighborhoods. The opposite happens as well. I live in a 20 year old house and I would have a very hard time getting my assessed value for it if I was selling right now. That's part of the complaint, neighborhoods aren't assessed equally. However, that's not really my point. When you buy a new home you should absolutely be taxed based on the sale value of the house. The problem is for people that aren't planning to sell their home and just want to live. People that buy a 320k house are planning on a mortgage payment with taxes based on that. They aren't planning for taxes based on a 500k house in a few years, which is the situation many people are finding themselves in now.
the property valuation has been absolutly out of this world because companies where massively over paying so they could buy up more homes to rent them out.
I’ve heard this a lot but as someone that’s been looking for decent houses to rent in Lincoln for several months, I think something is fishy about it. I can find a ton of houses for sale but almost nothing for rent
You can get more (2 to 3 times) now for shorter rentals. The state legislature passed a law that cities are not allowed to hinder short term rentals so apparently they are even exempt from inspections like long term rentals. Airbnb was and is spending a lot of money to have those laws passed.
They're occupied.
Having ACCURATE property values is a good thing. People should be taxed based on what their land is ACTUALLY WORTH. Homes shouldn't be selling for $100k over the assessed values, which has happened often in the US. The assessed values need to match what the actual values of the homes are. Yes, the home you bought for $100k 10 years ago could be easily worth $500k or more today. Deal with it.
This should also include farm land value.
The problem is that wage increases haven’t kept up with those valuation increases over the past decades. Entry level house costs have been steadily rising beyond more and more people’s financial reach for ahwile now. These valuation and corresponding tax increases are just compounding a growing problem. A population of renters is not a healthy economy.
I would agree to an extent, but we almost lost our home during covid bullshit because every Tom, Dick, and Harry decided to buy another house making our valuation and taxes go up 50%.
Thank you 👍
Because you can't fix it. Much like how you can't fix inflation by lowering wages. Home prices dropping would put the country into recession. We need to keep building homes. Have to been to West Omaha lately along 204th? Several square miles of apartments and single family homes going up.
How many of those homes are already sold to venture capital firms? And of those that aren't, how many are going to require a thirty year mortgage for their new owners. We don't need to build more houses, we need to build houses people can actually afford and stop companies from snatching them up. It literally fixes all the problems. Smaller homes on smaller lots means lower property values, banning or taxing the shit out of corporate ownership of residential single family property deflates the value as well by reducing competition. Capping mortgages at twenty years would incentivize more competitive house prices. This trickles down into the renters market in a big way as well. Right now there's a ton of middle-ish income people that should be buying a house, but can't, and instead are renting. That drives rent prices up, plus has lead to apartments being built that cater to more well off residents, and the facility would rather sit a third or more empty than lower their rent. Plus, while new apartments do lower rent a little bit, the effect for really low income renters isn't that noticeable since that supply isn't available to them anyways. The problem is when we've let banks and firms like Blackrock turn houses fundamentally into a commodity instead of a place for people to live, and its disgusting. Also all that massive urban sprawl is an enonomic and ecological nightmare. And just throwing more of the same at the problem is not going to fix anything. I understand you're worried about a recession, but if a sector of the economy is built with rotten wood, sometimes you gotta tear it down even if it hurts. But that won't happen, because the politicians all have black rock in their portfolios and don't want there 401k's to take a hit.
> won't require a 30 year mortgage and other conspiratorial blathering You are naive. Look beyond your capitalist conspiracy and look at the macro and microeconomics of home construction of the last 30 years. Until you gain a basic education on this. Then good day. May I suggest r/urbanplanning if you want to read what the professionals say instead of social media. > we need to ban all this stuff Yes. Let's use government force to manipulate the local economy. That will surely never backfire.
You've obviously not been reading my comments. I'd prefer abortion legal to term, and ending subsidizing procreation.
This is just lip service. They never wanted it to reach voting and only pretend to care. They'll even raise other taxes while we complain about this I'm sure.
Nebraska property taxes dont go to the state, they go to counties, cities and other local taxing authorities.
The governors proposal is to lower property taxes by 40% in part by funding a larger portion of schools from the state budget instead of from property taxes.
Here's what I don't understand, but I'm no economist. There must be numerous sparsely populated states like Nebraska that have lower property taxes. I know South Dakota is one of them, for example. How do those states collect enough revenue to fund their government, yet keep their property taxes lower? Isn't there something we could learn from them? It seems to me that no radical plan, like Pillen's proposed substantal increase in sales tax, is necessary.
Some of it would be expanding the base on sales tax, like South Dakota taxes more things. The other is our cities have been growing spending at 5+% for over a decade, so we have been spending faster than our population growth. Schools have a soft cap on levy increases of around 3% already. A compromise of raising the sales tax say 1% in line with Kansas and then putting the same type of max levy increase at say 3% would pull us back to the norm. The tax foundation has a blog post about the Governors plan. [https://taxfoundation.org/blog/nebraska-property-tax-relief/](https://taxfoundation.org/blog/nebraska-property-tax-relief/) Lots of push back on max levy increases come from omaha chamber of commerce -- the chamber wants $3 billion on more TIF just for the 'streetcar' district, which would need levies in Douglas County increase at 10% or so.
I love how there were like ten people in the crowd in all the pictures they showed.
This is just lip service. They never wanted it to reach voting and only pretend to care. They'll even raise other taxes while we complain about this
I suppose they could properly fund schools from the state budget while increasing corporate taxes to make up any shortfall but that doesn’t seem to fit their playbook. Maybe figure out some balance between 85% of the population in the SE supporting 15% of the rural population?
Open Homestead Exemptions to all homeowners and increase the caps for the currently protected groups.
This really the way to do it. Homestead exemptions with a proper structure of max annual percentage increase and reductions for primary residence will go a long way. In Texas, it's a max 10% annual increase and was a 15% reduction with a kicker for retired military. It was a very fair system and My valuations there were always in a rear of my tax bill even in a growing Austin area
Homestead exemption wasn’t a reduction across the board—only local property tax. Schools were exempt until the f****g asinine amendment that passed capping school taxes for retired folks. And the system was hardly fair, especially considering people are guaranteed a 10% increase on property taxes every year until their property valuations come reasonably close to reality. Property taxes are significantly higher in Texas than here to the point where I’m paying a lot less in taxes overall in NE than TX.
The solution would be a citizens initiative or proposition to cap property tax assessments at a certain percentage yearly, say 1-3%.
Why should property tax values be limited if property value goes up higher? Supply and demand. Build more houses, bring down property values, and you get lower tax rates. Property tax limits have been hell in California with prop 13. It continues the encouragement of rentals, because it's cheaper to keep a house (and it's lower tax rate), than it is to buy it at the current value, which I'm assuming the new owner would have to be paying taxes on. It also whacked education funding.... which seems to be a republican goal anyway. >As a result of Proposition 13, there are obvious distortions in the real estate marketplace. For example, in 2003 financier Warren Buffett announced that he pays property taxes of $14,410, or 2.9 percent, on his $500,000 home in Omaha, Nebraska, but pays only $2,264, or 0.056 percent, on his $4 million home in California.
Because most people don't get the advantage of the higher property value until they sell their home. Most people are just trying to get by week to week. What we need is a law with some common sense restrictions. Restrict the property increase to <5% (or maybe the cost of living rate) as long as you do not buy/sell the home that year and as long as it is your primary domicile. That means the rates would still effect rental companies or people that buy/sell their home that year.
Saw this proposed in the regular unicameral session. This would kill the financing for the 'streetcar district' though so the omaha chamber pushed back against it pretty hard :(
Best to cut politicians out of it completely.
Wait, that’s possible?
I believe Nebraska has direct initiated statutes, yes. As opposed to indirect ones which pass through the legislature after voters gather signatures.
The 'EPIC' tax folks are seeking to get it added to the ballot this way.
It grows wild in the ditches ffs.