Ohio Homeowners Challenge the Property-Tax System

Dozens of people stopped at folding tables in Hartville, Ohio, to sign petitions to abolish property taxes, challenging a revenue system local governments use to fund schools and public services. “I'm old. I've paid my home off,” said Ray Warner, a 72-year-old Akron resident. “Why would I pay property tax?”

The petition drive is part of a wider revolt. Over the past two years, plans to reduce or repeal property taxes have emerged in more than two dozen states. Homeowners point to rising home prices, mortgage rates and insurance bills. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, home values have risen an average of 50% nationwide.

A grassroots challenge—and a political opening

At the Hartville flea market, campaign leader Brian Massie said volunteers had gathered 300,000 signatures. Political observers believed the Ohio measure could qualify for the 2027 ballot. “People are just walking up,” Massie said. “We don't have to do anything.”

Massie, 79, leads the Ohio campaign, which uses the slogan “Ax OH Tax.” A decade earlier, he became alarmed by the tax bill on his 5,400-square-foot home outside Cleveland. He studied Ohio tax laws and local taxing authorities' finances, then spoke to community groups about rising bills and housing costs. Local officials once dismissed him as a crank and gadfly; now, state legislators call him as they introduce bills to cut property taxes.

The petition campaign reflects a dispute over who decides what homeowners owe and which shared services receive funding. Activists call homeowners “vassals” who pay rent to the government to use their own homes, which authorities can seize if a bill goes unpaid. Judge Glock, an economic historian and senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, said the language has become a powerful slogan among Republicans. The campaign also draws on a real pressure point: according to an analysis of U.S. Census data by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the median annual property-tax payment rose 25% from 2019 to 2024, an increase of more than $600.

Ohio property taxes already rank among the country's highest. The Lincoln Institute found that typical bills have climbed to nearly $3,000 a year. “It started out with dollars and cents,” Massie said. “Worried about grandma getting pushed out of her home.”

Who pays when revenue disappears?

According to the Tax Foundation, property taxes provide about 70% of local tax collections, and state and local governments collect about $800 billion a year from the levy. Many academics consider the tax a stable source of revenue because land can't be moved or hidden. They also argue that public services can increase property values, tying local revenue to the assets those services help create.

But tax bills can rise even when a homeowner loses a job or cuts spending. A neighbor's higher sale price can prompt officials to raise an assessment and tax bill. For homeowners who rely on their homes for shelter, retirement security or inheritance, those increases can strain budgets and threaten their ability to stay put.

Local governments, schools, labor unions, hospitals and business groups have warned that steep cuts could leave services short of money. Budget advisers to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine warned that abolishing property taxes “would quite literally 'defund' the police,” and fire departments, schools and libraries would face the same problem. Robert Butler, a past president of the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police and police chief in Independence, said the change could mean “the immediate forced liquidation of patrol units and the degradation of emergency response.”

Charlestown, a growing community in Indiana, has already cut its budget after the Legislature reduced taxes on primary residences. A public park with mini golf, a splash pad and a roller-skating rink cut its schedule from seven days a week to four. Residents on cul-de-sacs were told their streets wouldn't be cleared immediately in the coming winter because the city couldn't pay snowplow drivers overtime.

The ballot isn't a clean escape hatch

Ohio's campaign is pressuring lawmakers and could put abolition before voters, but political support for sweeping cuts has limits. In February, Vivek Ramaswamy, a former Republican presidential candidate and the party's Ohio gubernatorial nominee, invited Massie and other organizers to his suburban Columbus home. Ramaswamy has called for a major rollback, but backed away from a promise to eliminate the tax entirely. Massie says politicians are trying to take over the campaign's momentum while rejecting its goal.

North Dakota voters rejected a property-tax repeal initiative in 2024 by nearly a 2-to-1 margin. Local governments, labor unions and business leaders had argued the cuts were too severe and lacked replacement revenue. Recent polls in Florida and Ohio show initial support for drastic cuts falling below the level needed for passage after voters hear about possible local deficits or replacement tax increases.

The Tax Foundation says Ohio would lose $24 billion if it abolished the taxes. Replacing that amount would require the state's average income tax rate to rise to just under 13%, the foundation estimated. Massie called warnings about the consequences alarmist and said the Legislature would find other revenue. “We're not anarchists,” he said. “I'm not willing to give up my home for a book or a walk in the park.”

Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed more aggressive bills before signing a reduced package focused mainly on limiting future tax increases. “We have to provide for our schools; we have to provide for fire, EMS, police and children's services and many other things,” DeWine said.