IPTI | Property Tax in the News – March 2026

IPTI’s usual monthly newsletter – the “President’s Message” – contains, inter alia, some summarised news articles from around the world. This IPTI publication – “Property Tax in the News” – contains some of the more interesting news articles concerning property taxes in North America and Europe which is where many of our members have a particular interest. Links to these and more, similarly summarised, articles – from North America, Europe and around the globe – can be found in “IPTI
Xtracts” on our website: www.ipti.org. Please note that these are news articles; they do not necessarily reflect IPTI’s views.

USA

USA: Better Ways to Head Off Spiking Property Tax Bills

Sweeping state limits – or eliminating the tax altogether – are politically appealing. But cuts in property tax rates combined with targeted state tax relief are less disruptive to local finances. America is in the midst of a property tax revolt. In 2024 and 2025, more than a dozen states passed laws meant to slash property taxes for homeowners. And in several states, including Florida, Georgia and Texas, policymakers want to go even further and eliminate homeowner property taxes altogether.

These solutions may be politically appealing, but draconian measures are not the answer. They hobble local governments’ ability to raise necessary revenues to provide essential services for their residents and undermine progressivity in our tax system. In many cases, they amount to a solution in search of a problem. There are more efficient and targeted ways to address concerns about the property tax.

Headline-grabbing legislative actions have been driven largely by concern that the surge in housing prices will lead to a similar spike in property tax bills. But overall, growth in property taxes has been far less dramatic. Since 2020, housing prices have grown more than 50 percent nationally. Over the same period, however, property tax revenues grew at about half that rate — roughly keeping pace with inflation and below the growth in personal income.

That may come as a surprise to many people, who assume that property tax bills more closely track property values. But in fact, the relationship between tax bills and values is much looser, because most local governments routinely adjust tax rates to offset changes in property values. When home values rise rapidly, tax rates often fall. That’s the main reason property taxes have not spiked in proportion to housing prices in recent years. This stands in contrast to sales and income taxes, where rate changes are far less frequent.

For most taxpayers, local property tax cuts are sufficient to prevent excessive growth in tax bills. Yet the extent to which local governments lower rates when values rise varies widely across states, which can explain why some states have seen property taxes grow more quickly since 2020. Why are rate adjustments routine in some states, but rare in others?

One reason is that areas where property values have historically been stable may simply be accustomed to leaving tax rates largely unchanged from year to year. State laws and practices matter too – states should structure their property tax systems in ways that encourage regular rate adjustments.

The types of property tax limitations used in a state are particularly important. Whereas limits on growth in property tax revenue encourage tax rate adjustments, limits on property tax rates discourage them, and limits on growth in assessed values have no clear independent effect. But after weighing the evidence, it seems that all of these tax limits do more harm than good, with assessment limits having especially severe unintended consequences. A better approach is “truth in taxation,” which by requiring disclosure of expected increases in property tax revenues creates political pressure on local policymakers to reduce rates when values increase.

Even with significant rate reductions, however, taxpayers with the fastest growth in assessed values may still face above-average increases in their tax bills. That’s why targeted state relief is important. Circuit breakers are the most cost-effective way to help overburdened taxpayers, because they target relief to households paying the highest share of their income in property taxes.

But sweeping efforts to slash property taxes across the board or eliminating the tax altogether are likely to leave states worse off. Replacing the property tax with higher sales or income taxes would be enormously expensive. In Florida, for example, the Tax Foundation found that replacing the revenues from eliminating the property tax would require more than doubling the combined state local sales tax rate. In Ohio, it would require increasing the income tax rate from roughly 4 percent to 13 percent. That’s not a good swap.

It may be unpopular, but the property tax has major advantages compared to sales and income taxes. It’s more stable over the business cycle, causes less harm to the economy and its immobile tax base is particularly suited to local governments since it’s less vulnerable to destructive tax competition among neighboring jurisdictions. It’s also more progressive than the sales tax, meaning that tax swaps would shift the burden toward lower-income households.

State and local governments should work together to effectuate the simplest but most effective way to control property taxes: cuts in local property tax rates to offset rising property values, combined with targeted state relief. Sweeping state tax changes are likely to cause more harm than good.

Authors: Adam H. Langley is associate director of tax policy at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Thomas Brosy is a senior research associate at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

Georgia: Nationwide voter revolt over property taxes collides with reality that every other revenue source has been slashed already

More and more states are examining plans to cut property taxes during what’s an election year for governors and legislators in most states. But some states’ tax-cutting zeal is hitting political resistance to slashing local government and public school funding.

National experts say it’s a property tax revolt – comparing it to earlier backlashes, including the one that led to California’s Proposition 13, a 1978 initiative that limited property tax rates and how much local governments could increase property valuations on homes for tax purposes. Like then, rising home values have driven higher property tax bills.

“The overwhelming trend across the states is relief for residential property owners,” said Manish Bhatt of the Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C., group that studies taxes.

New proposals have been debated in recent weeks to cut taxes in Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin. In some of those states, the debate is likely to play out for months. While political pressure from angry homeowners is likely to keep some legislatures on track to cut property taxes, efforts to eliminate property taxes on a homeowner’s primary residence face a difficult path.

In Georgia on Tuesday, a state constitutional amendment that could have cut property taxes for homeowners by 75% or more failed when all but one Democrat voted against it. Because such amendments in Georgia require a two-thirds vote by legislators, the plan backed by Republican state House Speaker Jon Burns needed at least 21 Democratic votes.

The Georgia bill could be revived, but House Republicans said they would also begin looking at more limited ways to provide property tax relief that wouldn’t require a constitutional amendment.

In Florida, House lawmakers passed a proposed state constitutional amendment to phase out property taxes for non-school purposes over 10 years. The proposal, which would cost an estimated $13 billion in forgone revenue, awaits Senate action. But a key state senator has signaled that his chamber is unlikely to agree, instead saying senators favor something less generous and more tailored to the needs of individual counties. Lawmakers have said it may take a special session to reach a deal.

Thomas Brosy, a senior research associate at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said eliminating property taxes is “very unlikely to happen.” “Completely slashing them is really unrealistic, since it really is the largest source of on revenues for most local governments in the United States,” Brosy said.

Even the plan rejected Tuesday in Georgia was a step back from the original plan to phase out homeowner property taxes by 2032. Tuesday’s version would have cut, but not necessarily eliminated, property taxes on a primary residence, while encouraging local governments and schools to instead rely on sales taxes to fund operations. It would also have raised taxes on sales of computers to data centers to offset some revenue losses.

State House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Shaw Blackmon said the measure would have provided “dramatic savings for homeowners.” “We’ve all received emails from constituents worried their skyrocketing property tax will force them from their homes,” he said in a debate on Tuesday.

But state House Democratic Minority Leader Carolyn Hugley called the bill an election-year “exercise in cold, hard politics.” She and other Democrats said that in many cases, local governments wouldn’t be legally able to raise sales taxes enough to offset the billions in property taxes that would be lost. “The math’s just not math-ing. It just does not add up,” Hugley said. “And this is not a responsible thing to do.”

Other states are looking at shifting from property taxes to sales taxes as well. South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden proposes letting counties impose a half-percent sales tax and devoting the proceeds to property tax credits for homeowners. Last week, Rhoden, a Republican, launched a website estimating how much homeowners would save annually on property taxes, ranging from $428 to $1,227. However, it doesn’t count how much people would pay from increased sales taxes.

In Michigan, Republican state House Speaker Matt Hall last week proposed raising taxes on currently untaxed services and using the money to erase the state’s share of property taxes, the state real estate transfer tax and Michigan’s personal property tax. Any agreement may not come until lawmakers finalize the state budget in the fall.

One issue with a shift to sales taxes is that it may shift the tax burden from richer to poorer people, Brosy with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center said.

“They try to get it to the next best thing or the next available thing, which is the sales tax, which in itself is a lot more regressive and tends to fall a lot more on lower-income families compared to the property tax,” he said.

Another issue with shifting to sales taxes is that some local governments have few sources of retail sales to tax.

“Not all locations have the same opportunities to replace that revenue,” Bhatt of the Tax Foundation said. “And that often is missed in the discussions.”

California: Santa Clara County property owners to pay fee for assessment appeals

Santa Clara County homeowners and businesses will have to pay hundreds of dollars in fees to challenge how much they pay in property taxes every year.

The Board of Supervisors on Feb. 10 unanimously approved charging single-family home and condo owners $290 to appeal the county assessor’s determination of their property value, which in turn determines the taxes homeowners pay on their property. The $290 fee will also apply to owners of townhomes and multifamily properties with four homes or fewer, as well as agricultural land and vacant land appeals.

County leaders will also charge $675 for appeals on commercial, industrial and multifamily apartment properties with more than four homes. They argue the appeals process takes up time and resources that the county budget doesn’t have as it absorbs massive federal funding losses. The new fees would bring in $3.4 million in revenue per year — largely covering the $3.5 million cost to run the assessment appeals program annually.

The fee was not proposed by the Assessor’s Office but by the county clerk, which processes assessment appeal filings. “We are one of the minority counties that does not have an assessment appeals fee,” County Executive James Williams said before the vote. The decision came despite letters and public comments raising concerns the county was yet again putting another bill on taxpayers.

“The proposed non-refundable fees – $290 for homeowners and $675 for commercial and multifamily property owners – are unreasonably high and would create a serious barrier for residents and business owners seeking to challenge potentially inaccurate property assessments,” licensed Realtor Milo Abadilla wrote to supervisors in one of dozens of letters from residents. “The appeals process is a core county function that is already supported through existing tax revenues. Adding a large upfront, nonrefundable fee effectively penalizes taxpayers for exercising their right to ensure fair and accurate assessments.”

Critics added that Santa Clara County’s fees would land among the highest across California counties. Los Angeles County charges about $50 and San Francisco County charges $120. Homeowners usually make their check out to the county when paying property taxes. But Williams said the county – which runs Northern California’s largest public hospital system and faces a $470 million deficit next year – sees a nominal slice of the $8 billion in property tax revenue that’s generated every year. “About two-thirds of every dollar goes to school districts and community colleges. A slice goes to cities, a slice goes to special districts,” Williams said at the meeting. “But the costs associated with the administration of the entire system are almost entirely borne by the county general fund.”

Williams said the $3.5 million cost to process appeals takes critical dollars away from other departments at a time of enormous fiscal strain. “We’re essentially shifting funding away from core safety net services, away from county direct obligations, to then cover these kinds of categories of costs,” Williams said.

The county will study the new fee program for a year – by which point it’ll explore a sliding scale system of fees for business owners whose operations don’t make enough money to absorb the $675 fees.

Board President Otto Lee, who represents District 3, questioned whether successful appeals could have their fees refunded. His colleagues said that would defeat the purpose. “Whether or not the appeal has been successful, the work has been done,” District 4 Supervisor Susan Ellenberg said at the meeting. “We need to account for the investigative time and analysis that staff needs to do in every case.”

CANADA

British Columbia: MLA says assessment change aims to stop value drop after Aboriginal title decision

The changes says the B.C. Assessment Authority is “not required to consider any restriction” placed on the use of land by any entity other than the Crown or local governments. An Opposition critic suspects the NDP government is preparing for a potential drop in property values in areas where Aboriginal title claims create uncertainty. A short amendment to assessment law that could have the effect of protecting property tax revenues from drops in market value is included in Bill 2, the Budget Measures Implementation Act, a lengthy catalogue of all the legal moves needed to adopt the budget.

The assessment change is intriguing, given the concerns that arose in Richmond since the Cowichan title ruling last year about the impact that decision would have on property values. It states that the B.C. Assessment Authority, which sets the taxable value of all property, is “not required to consider any restriction” placed on the use of land by any entity other than the Crown or local governments.

Conservative Party of B.C. MLA Gavin Dew said the amendment “deserves much more scrutiny than it will probably get.” Property values are “affected when buyers worry that unresolved claims, disputes or assorted constraints could delay development, increase legal exposure or reduce the practical use of the land,” he said. Any restrictions arising from concerns about land claims would lower values. But the amendment would allow assessors to ignore them.

Dew is questioning whether assessed values on lands where Aboriginal claims are a concern would be “artificially propped up” – along with taxation rates. The concern is that the market price could be lowered by any independent recognition of the land-claim concern, but the Assessment Authority would be free to ignore it. The only restrictions it could take into account are those imposed by governments.

“Could British Columbians end up paying higher tax on a paper value that ignores real market uncertainty?” Dew asked. “This is not a small technical point. It goes directly to whether people are being taxed on what their property is truly worth in the market or on a cleaner, fictional value that is more convenient for government revenue.”

Assessors still have to consider certain registered covenants, specific issues that are registered on the title, he said. But he is pursuing the question: “When unresolved asserted claims impair market value, is B.C. Assessment expected to reflect that reality or pretend it doesn’t exist?”

The change is a few lines in the bulky 18,000-word bill on budget day Feb. 17. It includes most of the higher-profile measures, like the elimination of the Office of the Merit Commissioner – which ensures hiring in the B.C. Public Service is based on merit – changes to the property-tax deferral system and the various tax increases.

The assessment law change comes after months of public concern about what the Cowichan decision last August means to property values for the hundreds of hectares in Richmond that are at issue. Those concerns are so serious that Premier David Eby last year committed $150 million to provide provincial loan guarantees to private property owners who were dealing with uncertainty caused by the B.C. Supreme Court decision. The amount is a rough guess about how much might be needed. It could be far higher.

The funds would backstop any owners dealing with financing issues arising from the decision. The biggest one is an industrial real estate firm – Montrose Properties – that owns about 120 hectares of the title area. The court decision did not change the ownership of that land, but it did declare that nearby Crown and municipal titles were defective and invalid. Montrose has filed legal documents saying uncertainty has resulted in the firm being denied financing and having a deal cancelled.

Amidst the welter of appeals that followed the court decision, the company has filed to have the entire case reopened because it was not a party to the five years of proceedings. B.C. and the federal government are backing that motion, while also appealing the decision. Dew said he has found zero explanation for the assessment change in all the budget documents. “I hope there is some innocuous explanation for this, but we have seen nothing about why it was done.”

Eby told the Richmond Chamber of Commerce last year the government would “go to the wall” to protect property owners following the decision.

Barring some completely different explanation for the assessment amendment, it looks like the government is going a fair distance to protect the revenue stream they represent as well.

EUROPE

France: Local property taxes

Local property taxes are a significant and ongoing cost for homeowners in France, particularly for those buying second homes or relocating from abroad. Bills can vary widely from one commune to another and even between similar properties on the same street, depending on local council policy and how a property is assessed.

For most homeowners, paperwork is minimal. Bills are available in your personal space on the French tax website impots.gouv.fr, although paper bills can still be requested. Many people opt to pay by direct debit in monthly installments (mensualisation).

Local property taxes are assessed according to the situation on January 1 of the French tax (calendar) year and are described as ‘local’ because they help fund municipal and intercommunal services.

The principal tax paid by almost all property owners is taxe foncière (real estate tax). The most common version applies to built properties (buildings and their immediate dependencies such as gardens, garages, and outbuildings). A separate taxe foncière exists for undeveloped land.

Taxe foncière is always paid by the owner, even if the property is rented out. For those paying in a single installment, the deadline is generally October 15 for traditional payment methods and October 20 for online payments. Many owners instead pay by ten monthly direct debits from January to October, based on the previous year’s bill, with adjustments made at the end of the year if needed. The average bill in France is a little over €1,000 but amounts can vary considerably, so buyers are advised to ask the seller or estate agent how much the last taxe foncière bill came to before committing to a purchase.

Taxe d’habitation (residential tax) used to be paid by most households but has been abolished for main residences since 2023. It now applies only to second homes.

Taxe d’habitation is not payable by owner-occupiers of main homes, nor on properties rented out long term as someone else’s main residence. However, it may apply to second homes used for holiday lets, particularly if owners retain the ability to use the property themselves when it is not let out.

Communes in areas facing housing pressure, including many coastal and tourist areas, may apply a surtax on top of taxe d’habitation of between 5% and 60%. Roughly half of the communes eligible to do so have opted for this.

Your main residence is the property where you live habitually or with which you have the strongest personal and professional ties. It must be declared as such via the biens immobiliers section of your online tax account. Homeowners are required to declare changes in how a property is used (for example, switching from a main home to a second home, or from personal use to rental) by June 30 for changes relating to the previous year.

People who are non-residents for tax purposes cannot have a ‘main residence’ in France for tax purposes even if they only have one residence in France.

Most households also pay a rubbish collection tax. This is either the taxe d’enlèvement des ordures ménagères (TEOM), which is added to the taxe foncière bill, or the redevance d’enlèvement des ordures ménagères (REOM), which is billed separately.

Some communes include a variable “incentive” element based on the volume of rubbish produced. In principle, these charges should reflect the cost of the service, although there have been reports of councils using them to raise additional revenue.

TEOM must be paid by the person who pays the taxe foncière bill, but it can be recuperated from a tenant if the property is rented out, as part of the tenant’s charges. REOM is only payable by the person who uses the property.

Taxe foncière bills may also include smaller additional levies, for example to fund flood prevention works or the acquisition of land for public projects. In some cases, special taxes apply to properties that left vacant, which means unused and unfurnished.

With the exception of REOM, local property taxes are calculated based on a theoretical annual rental value known as the valeur locative cadastrale (VLC). For taxe foncière, the taxable base is half of this value, to which percentage rates voted by the commune and often an intercommunal authority are applied.

VLC calculations are complex and are based on rental market studies last carried out in 1970. They take into account floorspace, comfort elements (such as bathrooms, central heating, or elevators), maintenance condition, luxury category, and dependencies such as garages or swimming pools which are assigned notional surface areas. VLCs are increased annually in line with inflation, as set out in the national budget. They are also adjusted when extensions or new facilities are built and declared.

Homeowners who believe their VLC is too high can request a detailed breakdown from their centre des impôts fonciers and, in some cases, challenge elements such as the maintenance coefficient, luxury category, or declared floor space. A long-delayed reform of VLCs, intended to reflect modern rental markets, is now expected to apply only from the early 2030s. This is intended to make use of rental values declared via the biens immobiliers system but will, in most cases, be based on the typical value of house or flat in a given district.

This has given rise to some concerns as the current VLCs are invariably far below market rental rates; however, officials say adjustments will be made to the values obtained from the surveys so there is no sudden steep hike, the aim not being to increase taxation but to make sure VLCs fairly reflect factors such as how desirable a given location is in the current market.

In theory the overall tax revenue for the council should remain similar, but households may see a rise or drop in their individual bills. Moving forward, it is intended that the values should be readjusted on an ongoing basis based on information supplied each year via biens immobiliers.

Several exemptions or reductions exist, though most apply only to main residences and residents of France. For taxe foncière, owners aged 75 or over may be fully exempt if their household income is below modest means thresholds. Those aged 65 to 74 with similar incomes may receive a €100 reduction. Other exemptions may apply to certain new-build properties or following approved energy-efficiency renovations.

For taxe d’habitation, the main exemption applies to residents who move permanently into a care home or hospital while retaining ownership of their former home. Certain business-related exemptions may also apply. Separate from annual local taxes is the taxe d’aménagement, a one-off tax payable on certain construction works requiring planning permission. This includes extensions, garages, verandas, conservatories, sheds, swimming pools, carports, and some renewable energy installations, above specified size thresholds.

 

 

Compliments of the International Property Institute – a member of the EACCNY