North Dakota voters will decide this fall whether to eliminate property taxes in what would be a first for a state and a major change that officials initially estimate would require more than $1 billion every year in replacement revenue.

Secretary of State Michael Howe’s office said Friday that backers submitted more than enough signatures to qualify the constitutional initiative for the November general election. Voters rejected a similar measure in 2012.

Property taxes are the base funding for numerous local government services, including sewers, water, roads, jails, deputies, school building construction and teacher salaries — “pretty much the most basic of government,” said North Dakota Association of Counties Executive Director Aaron Birst.

      • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        “What do you mean we have no police,fire,schools,water,roads? What happened?”-- dumbasses who ended property tax at the urging of the wealthy

        • clearedtoland@lemmy.world
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          Oh this is curious! Cause the solution would be for those services to be privatized. I wonder how many would pay for those services.

          “No, Jimmy. You don’t need to go to skool. Now go change bale the hay.”

          • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            Sure thing daddy-brother!!

            gets mangled in the baler because he’s an idiot then dies because they closed down the firestation and first responders

  • Mk23simp@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 month ago

    There definitely are better taxes than property taxes. But, since it’s a red state, they would probably replace it with a worse one. Or just debt.

    • NateNate60@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      It’ll probably be replaced with sales tax increases. Sales taxes are very well-known to be regressive.

      Or think of “low-tax” Texas, where every other road is privately operated and charges tolls out the ass.

      • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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        1 month ago

        Even ignoring privatized services, taxes in Texas are higher than California for the average person. It’s a total myth unless you belong to the upper class.

      • ramble81@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        “Every other road…” serious [citation needed] there. I live in San Antonio (you know 6th, largest city, metro of 2.2m people) and there’s not a single toll road. Austin, Dallas and Houston have a few but it’s by far not every other road. You can get around on 10, 35, 45 and the corresponding ring roads just fine.

        Also the property taxes here are quite high compared to a lot of other states, but as such there’s no state income tax.

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Fun fact. That was in Grafton, NH. NH doesn’t have sales tax. Instead, there’s a correspondingly high property tax.

      At least they get good value for it. The schools aren’t terrible, and the roads are better than the much wealthier state of MA right nearby.

        • loie@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Definitely not. There’s Teddy Roosevelt National Park, which is gorgeous, but it doesn’t attract nearly as much tourism of all the stuff that’s four hours south…

          South Dakota has Badlands National Park, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Wind Cave National Park, Jewel Cave National Monument, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, Mammoth Site, Black Hills National Forest, Deadwood and Sturgis, a couple good private zoos in Reptile Gardens and Bear Country. All of that stuff is within a 1 hour drive of Rapid City, which has plenty of good hotels and restaurants and just generally what you’d expect from a modern midsize city. Rapid City is honestly worth the trip for anyone, but If you’re a real outdoorsy person then you could easily enjoy a month out there. Oh and then not that far away (relatively speaking - 2 hours drive) is Devil’s Tower in Wyoming.

          So no… NoDak is comparatively sparse. And they probably like it that way.

    • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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      Or sales tax, or something else. High taxation and misuse of taxes is bad, but taxes themselves support the infrastructure everyone uses. So if they get rid of this, something else is going to have to take its place unless the property tax was way too high.

  • Media Bias Fact Checker@lemmy.worldB
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    1 month ago
    Associated Press - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)

    Information for Associated Press:

    MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
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    https://apnews.com/article/property-taxes-home-values-assessments-780631c8a0d3dce9f5c56249cc0e3ab9
    https://apnews.com/article/north-dakota-property-tax-elimination-measure-9afb0e1b331301a752cb1f69b16d3951

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