Port: I’m not convinced our Legislature knows what the term “property tax relief” means

MINOT — “Property tax aid.”

North Dakota’s politicians maintain utilizing that time period.

As the good Inigo Montoya may say

, “I do not suppose it means what they suppose it means.”

To catch you up,

in response to the Legislative Council

, during the last 15 years, North Dakota’s lawmakers have appropriated

greater than $7.25 billion

to what they describe as “property tax aid.” This method to property tax aid has now obliged the state to pay native governing entities about $1.6 billion per biennium “to assist maintain down taxes,”

as Senate Majority Chief David Hogue has put it

.

But North Dakotans are nonetheless crying out for property tax aid. As a result of their property taxes aren’t truly taking place.

What have we achieved if we spend $7.25 billion on “property tax aid” and property taxpayers do not feel that aid?

It looks like we have simply elevated spending. And right here we go once more.

Heading into this legislative session, there have been two competing plans for tax aid. One is yet one more iteration of this property tax purchase down scheme, represented by

Senate Invoice 2066

, which has handed the state Senate by a 42-4 vote. The fiscal observe on the invoice signifies that it could value about $203 million per biennium.

And sure, I am utilizing the phrase “value,” as a result of when this spending does not lead to decrease taxes, then that is all it’s. Spending.

The opposite plan, backed by Gov. Doug Burgum and represented by

Home Invoice 1158

, which has handed the Home by a 79-14 vote, seeks to eradicate the earnings tax for many North Dakotans,

saving them about $287 million per biennium

.

Plainly lawmakers are on a trajectory to move each of those payments, calling every “tax aid,” although, once more, based mostly on expertise, solely one in every of these payments will lead to easing North Dakota tax burdens.

“The Home desires earnings tax aid, and the Senate desires property tax aid,” Sen. Randy Burckhard, a Minot Republican,

mentioned throughout a current legislative discussion board

. “That is what I believe we have now provide you with. It’s a complete of $564 million collectively.” Of that whole, $288 million can be income-tax cuts, and $208 million can be what the politicians declare is “property tax aid,” and one other $68 million can be Homestead Tax Credit for low-income seniors and other people with disabilities.

It is all good, apart from that $208 million in spending on phony-baloney “tax aid.”

It isn’t “tax aid” if taxes do not go down.

And we all know this spending will not decrease taxes as a result of we have already gone down this street, to the tune of greater than $7 billion, and it is achieved virtually nothing outdoors of including $1.6 billion per biennium in ongoing spending obligations.

I anticipate Sen. Burckhard is correct, and lawmakers will finally ship some hybrid of property tax/earnings tax reform. And so they’ll get away with calling the property tax portion “tax aid” as a result of they have been getting away with it for a decade and a half.

However let’s be clear: Elevated spending on native governments is just not “property tax aid” when our property tax payments do not go down.