Taxing us out of land ownership

Come to Loup City, Nebraska Aug 8, 2024 seeking solutions.

It doesn’t matter what state you want to talk about today, the sentiment is the same: they are taxing us out of land ownership. First, who are they? Well, for the most part, county government is funded by property taxes. I think my home state has the greatest problem but I don’t officially know who has the highest taxes but I do know that we can not afford to continue on the current path. Then the real problem hits the fan: the county government is struggling for an adequate amount of revenue to keep their operations afloat. And don’t forget that most of the property tax goes to fund local public schools.

We are hosting a meeting to walk through every bit of that in Loup City, NE on August 8, 2024 with 100% of the focus on understanding first how local governments and schools are funded and how we stop the bleeding for the property tax payers.

We will kick off the evening with a welcome from Sherman County Sheriff Joel Bergmann as we must not forget the role the County Sheriff has in protecting the citizens of the County, even against government. In addition to Sheriff Bergmann, I have invited Commissioners from three other counties.

Presenters will be Martin Denaeyer from Cherry County, NE, L. Wayne Johnson representing Clay County, NE and South Dakotan Jim Eschenbaum from Hand County. I really want folks to come and engage with these individuals on how county government, including school funding works. I realize they are going to say they have little to no say about school funding, but we will do a thorough walk-through of the funding mechanism.

We all realize that we are in the heat of election season and ALL campaigners have the answers to the problems. The real problem is that when they get elected, the problem grows. For that reason, I chose not to invite speakers who are actively campaigning. Each of these panelists recognize the problems on both ends and their discussion will explain what their experiences have led them to understand.

The whole concept of buying land and then, over a lifetime, paying more in property tax to fund local services than you paid to acquire the land is absolutely unsustainable. I find this bit of history on property taxes from Glenn W. Fisher of Wichita State University (emeritus) to be quite interesting:

Taxes based on ownership of property were used in ancient times, but the modern tax has roots in feudal obligations owned to British and European kings or landlords. In the fourteenth and fifteenth century, British tax assessors used ownership or occupancy of property to estimate a taxpayer’s ability to pay. In time the tax came to be regarded as a tax on the property itself (in rem). In the United Kingdom the tax developed into a system of “rates” based on the annual (rental) value of property.

In 1796 seven of the fifteen states levied uniform capitation taxes. Twelve taxed some or all livestock. Land was taxed in a variety of ways, but only four states taxed the mass of property by valuation. No state constitution required that taxation be by value or required that rates on all kinds of property be uniform.

It appears even the Royals of yesteryear had some understanding of the “ability to pay” for the landowner. Folks, our ability to pay is running short. Is the answer simply that we must spend less? It does appear to me that the hole in the bucket is runaway spending in the school system but I want to have a deep dive into the real works at the county level.

We all know that the best government is the closest government. It appears to me that mandates are putting our county government in peril and creating pressure on land assessments that will result in us eventually losing our land. Bill Gates isn’t concerned about astronomical property taxes or the high price of land. He has an unlimited ability to pay regardless of the price. Is that where we want our productive land and the heritage of our family to end up?

Join us in Sherman County, Nebraska at 6:30 pm on August 8, 2024 and ring your ideas to the table so together we can tackle this problem before it takes us all out.