Vivek Ramaswamy and Amy Acton. (Photo: WEWS.)
Ohio gubernatorial candidates have unveiled more detailed policies aimed at curbing the growing property tax crisis. The impartial tax expert is not very impressed.
Although he initially supported eliminating all property taxes, Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy of Ohio says that is no longer feasible.
“In a perfect world, I don’t want to pay any of these taxes, OK?” Ramaswamy said during a Strongsville town hall event last Friday.
Now he wants to restore property taxes to 2020 levels and then limit their growth.
“I can provide this property tax cut without harming local police, fire or schools because that’s what they were working with just a few years ago in the pre-pandemic era,” he said.
Nonpartisan tax expert Zach Schiller of Policy Matters Ohio sharply criticized the idea.
“I think it’s a bad idea in part because you’re providing help to a lot of people who don’t need it,” Schiller said. “Let’s direct our property tax relief to people who can’t afford it.”
Schiller talked to us about the ideas being floated by both teams of gubernatorial candidates and how realistic they are. He does not support, but talks about political ideas separately from the candidate.
He said a return to 2020 levels would only work if the state paid local governments all of the lost revenue.
We had earlier asked Ramaswamy how he planned to pay for it, but he did not respond. But at the town hall he came up with an idea.
“Simplify the bureaucracy, reduce the bureaucracy,” Ramaswamy said.
Trying to get rid of “waste” is not entirely recent for the candidate. Before announcing his candidacy for governor, he was to head the federal Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE). He didn’t end up like this.
“It’s easy to say that it doesn’t really address the issue in a meaningful way,” Schiller said, noting that getting rid of the “red tape” would be just a drop in the bucket to make up money.
Meanwhile, Democratic candidate Amy Acton and her running mate David Pepper just unveiled a policy plan that includes relief from recent tax increases and an expansion of the household tax exemption.
“You save seniors thousands of real dollars in property taxes,” Pepper said.
The rebate proposal would impact homeowners with incomes of less than $132,000 who pay property taxes on homes valued at $350,000 or less. They will be eligible for a rebate of up to $1,000 if their property taxes augment by more than 4% from the previous year.
The campaign also aims to “combat predatory tax collection practices,” including the sale of tax lien certificates to private collectors who charge 18% interest.
The homestead exemption proposal would raise the upper household income eligibility limit for seniors in Ohio to $50,000.
“It’s a sensible idea,” Schiller said. “I think it’s definitely not enough.”
Democrats also propose increasing funding for public schools so that districts don’t have to rely so heavily on property taxes.
“How are you going to pay for some of these tax relief plans?” we asked Pepper.
“It’s a big budget; it’s about priorities,” Pepper replied. “My take is this: They found the money to give big gifts and give breaks to the people at the top; we can find the money and budgets to help everyone else.”
In the last budget, Republicans passed a flat income tax for the state’s highest earners. They also donated $600 million in unclaimed funds to the Cleveland Browns for their recent Brook Park stadium.
However, Acton and Pepper said they would not augment any existing taxes.
Schiller questioned how much of their plans would be implemented, given the lack of action by the General Assembly over the years.
“Is there any chance it will actually go anywhere? I hope it does, but history shows we haven’t seen that very often,” he said.
According to his campaign website, Libertarian candidate Don Kissick fully supports eliminating property taxes.
“We prefer to see local taxes based on consumption, and since there is no transparency as to where the lottery is going (since it is a general education fund), we believe it is being used as a stopgap measure in other areas of the budget. That way, if we balance the budget and eliminate welfare for larger institutions, we can save a lot of money for Ohioans,” the campaign website says.
Schiller said it was the absolute worst idea he had heard and would be “disastrous” for the state. In his opinion, the household exemption had the greatest chance of success. Would prefer a circuit breaker though.
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This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and are published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication on other news outlets because it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.
