Michigan plans state constitution change to ban property taxes forever.

Photo above - can a complete ban on property taxes in Michigan prevent retirees from getting evicted from Detroit homes like these? We're about to find out . . .

At one end of the political spectrum we have New Jersey, a state where the MEDIAN property tax is a whopping $10,000 a year. At the other end is Michigan, which is considering a constitutional ban on property taxes completely.

Michigan's reasoning: “property taxes are the most heinous tax we pay because they take away equity from property owners and lead to the government taking away people's homes.” (see link at bottom.) This an actual quote from a republican candidate trying to replace sitting governor Whitmer. Whitmer (a democrat) is term limited, but there are 3 democrats, 3 republicans, and at least 1 independent in the scrum to succeed her. Everyone from mayors to sheriffs to truck drivers. Good luck to all of you, boys and girls.

As you might expect, Michigan’s county and city politicians are losing their minds. If property taxes are banned, there goes most of their ability to pick winners and losers at the local level. Deciding which corporations DON’T pay property taxes is the principal bait to entice factories to that weedy vacant lot just outside of town. Come election day, a new factory with 500 new jobs could be the deciding factor on an incumbent getting re-elected. The power to tax is not only “the power to destroy” but also the power to hoover up campaign contributions, votes, and waltz into a lifetime of government paychecks.

Back to the people who might lose their homes because of past due property taxes. Google this if you don’t think it’s a real thing. It’s such a problem that California passed a law in 1978 to stop local politicians from forcing retirees to sell their homes because they couldn’t afford soaring property taxes.

California stumbled for a moment, but soon recovered, hiking income taxes, gasoline taxes, electricity taxes, sales taxes, car registration fees, liquor tax, tobacco tax . . . and possibly a future 1% confiscation of your bank account balance, which sounds ominously like a property tax, doesn’t it?

So the endgame in Michigan probably won’t be less spending. It’s an attempt to shift the revenue/tax burden to the state income tax, which imposes progressively higher tax rates on the wealthy. This seems preferable to kicking retirees to the curb, no?

I don’t know if this would have saved the GM “factory zero” plant in Hamtramck Michigan, which closed last week. But higher property taxes certainly don’t lure new factories.

I’m just sayin’ . . .



The Michigan proposal that would eliminate property taxes

1,140 GM Factory Workers Laid off Permanently via MI State Paperwork Filing