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News on Co-creating Property Tax Exemptions
To co-create a future in which Humans are able to own and maintain their “legacy land” or “family estate” (my alternative translations of the term “kin’s domain”) in perpetuity, there must be no property tax on such land.
In reading the Ringing Cedars series, I recognized the importance of getting governments to completely exempt family estates from property taxes. I immediately had a chance to voice that idea in a “PDC” (permaculture design course) class on “Land Tenure” that I taught in late October here in Florida.
In this state, such a permanent property tax exemption must be done at the state constitution level, which requires 60% of the people (a “super-majority”) to agree to a constitutional amendment. Just yesterday, only a couple of months after also expressing the importance of this idea on Gabriel’s December International Community Call, I heard the news that eliminating property taxes is currently under discussion by the Florida state legislature and Governor DeSantis! A big thank you to all of you who have focused your energy on this subject. (See https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/desantis-eliminate-property-taxes-florida/ among other sources.)
Florida has no state income tax. About 80% of the taxes are raised through the state sales tax, which has a local add-on. The other 20% is from property taxes. The idea in eliminating property taxes is to raise sales taxes to make up for it. This would partly shift the burden from residents to travelers who come here and buy goods.
The current property tax system was developed partly under the influence of the Henry George Theorem (https://landreform.org/how-land-value-taxation-can-be-applied/), which promoted the “Single Tax” idea that the only tax that makes sense is a tax on the sales value of land (not including “improvements”, the euphemism attached to all the construction placed on the land by humans: buildings, roads, utilities, etc.). The property taxes on land have encouraged, rather than discouraged, the gross overdevelopment of land that we have inherited.
I think what is needed is not the complete elimination of all property taxes, but a shift to a tax on the the environmental impact of developed properties. Instead of local governments having a one-time “impact fee” on new development, followed by property taxes on the market value of that land (whether ever resold or not), I would propose an ongoing environmental impact tax on all real estate in Florida. Since the environmental impact of a family estate of at least 2.5 acres with a small house and barn/workshop is positive rather than negative, my vision is for annual property taxes to be replaced by annual environmental impact taxes. The bill on the table in Florida for a study of property tax elimination gives us an opportunity to craft a recommendation that could become an example to the other states and the world.
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This discussion was modified 3 months, 3 weeks ago by
dahVeed Montané.
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This discussion was modified 3 months, 3 weeks ago by
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1 Reply
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That’s an excellent start! I hope we can create a flow like this across the States!
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