LANSING, MI – An effort to eliminate property taxes in Michigan is trying to land on next year’s November election ballot.
Axe MI Tax is a proposed state constitutional amendment to forbid taxation and collection on real estate and personal property. Local governments would thus be required to fund essential services through existing state income, sales, alcohol, tobacco and marijuana taxes.
Property taxes, of which there is a statewide rate along with rates that local governments tack on, require land and building owners to pay money based on their taxable value. Rates vary, but 1.32% was typical in Michigan last year, according to financial advice company SmartAsset.
Very basically, that means a home with a taxable value of $100,000 could see an annual tax bill of $1,320. Michigan rates ranged last year from 0.84% in Leelanau County to 2.26% in Ingham County. The national average was 0.99%.
The money collected pays for public goods like parks and police, and that funding is the main source for local entities like cities, townships, counties, school districts and more.
In 2018, according to the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan, property taxes were 72% of all local tax collections in the U.S. and accounted for 31% of all public revenue collected by state and local governments.
But Axe MI Tax argues the burden has become too much.
“Retirees, homeowners and other hard-working families like farmers and small business owners should not live in fear of losing their property because someone wants a public pickleball court to be paid for by property tax dollars,” the ballot committee says on its website.
As controversial as this issue might be, it’s still a long way from showing up in a voting booth.
The Board of State Canvassers was to vote Friday on approving the summary blurb that will appear on petition signature sheets. And there was some debate as to whether Michigan elections director Jonathan Brater’s impartial summary exceeded the 100-word limit.
He argued numbers don’t count toward the limit, but attorney Paul McCord, representing Axe MI Tax, argued they do and thus make Brater’s summary 108 words long.
McCord decided to delay Friday’s blurb approval request for next month’s canvassers meeting so Axe MI Tax can propose a new blurb.
There also may be a major problem with the constitutional amendment’s content, opponents said Friday. Axe MI Tax seeks to repeal a Michigan law via the constitution, which is an unprecedented dual action.
Doing both at the same time doesn’t comply with election law or the state constitution, argued Steve Liedel, attorney for opposition group Citizens to Save our Public Safety and Schools.
Last year’s constitutional amendment to give Michigan a right to abortion, which Liedel represented as a lawyer, notably did not include repealing the state’s 1931 abortion ban. Legislators instead did this months later.
“Attempting to insert the legislative action of repealing the statute in a constitutional amendment evades the legislature’s ability to review or propose an alternative,” Liedel argued.
McCord rebutted that “all political power is vested in the people” of Michigan, and it is through the constitution that people “transfer their political power to the legislature.”
“Therefore, the people of the state of Michigan have the power to repeal the tax provision and to propose alternative means,” he said.
Source : M Live
