Reform taxes now, before it's too late

On Wednesday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost put out a call to county officials across the state to form a coalition to "spearhead property tax reform." The attorney general's message was simple — come up with a fix for property taxes now before they disappear altogether. "Ohioans are as angry as I've ever seen them – and rightly so," Yost said, adding that property taxes statewide have increased about 19% between 2020 and 2024. "These inflationary tax increases are hurting everyone and, in some cases, are forcing people out of the homes they worked their entire lives for." We've been seeing this and saying this for about a year now. We've been present at multiple county forums where countless people — particularly fixed-income seniors and low- or no-income individuals — have conveyed that same fear. It's debatable how fair it is to place the burden of spearheading property tax reform on county commissioners instead of legislators in Columbus — inflationary safeguards in Ohio House Bill 920 gutted years ago by legislators a large contributor to the situation we're in now — but both clearly have the capacity to effect change. We're thankful that the Erie County commissioners and local organizations like Serving Our Seniors have been proactive in examining and raising awareness of this issue and trying to spur local reform. The commissioners chose not to collect about $8.5 million in property tax this year (Perkins Township trustees also withheld about $165,000 of its share) and a county Blue Ribbon commission recently released a report ("Blue Ribbon group releases report," July 3 Sandusky Register) suggesting ways county entities can lessen the tax burden on residents. There's also a pending piece of state legislation, House Bill 335, that would alter the state's property tax system in a way that would benefit of taxpayers and the detriment of taxing entities ("Tax reform debated," June 30 Sandusky Register.) But Yost is predicting — probably correctly — that a citizen-led ballot initiative could be coming in the not-so-distant future with the goal of eliminating Ohio's property tax system entirely. Yost thinks that effort would pass in a landslide, and so do we. If that happens, Ohio property owners would gain massive relief, though at the expense of local tax-collecting entities, like school districts, senior services, libraries, police departments, village governments and more, that rely on property taxes to fund their operations. While clearly tax reform is needed for the benefit of residents, alternative tax funding methods like income tax, sales tax, sin taxes or something else must be established to ensure publicly funded agencies that benefit those same residents aren't pickpocketed of a large chunk of their money. For example, Ohio ranks 43rd in the nation for sales tax rates, 45th for corporate tax rates and 25th for individual income tax rates, so perhaps the property tax burden can be shifted elsewhere. "Reform will be painful, but not nearly as painful as trying to replace $20 billion in revenue that supports schools and local government," Yost said. Ohioans deserve property tax reform, and they're going to get it, one way or another. How exactly that plays out, though, is up to county and state government officials.