(Radio Iowa) – Brad Sherman, a Republican candidate for governor, says reducing property taxes is a priority, but he suggests taking a sledgehammer to the system and completely eliminating property taxes isn’t doable. “I would love to see no property tax,” Sherman said. “It’d be great, but I don’t know that there’s a way to fund our essential services, you know, if we were to cut out all property taxes. How do you do that?”

Sherman says he can think of only two ways to pay for police, fire and other essential services if the property tax is eliminated — either raise the state sales tax or use state income tax revenue. “And we’ve been cutting income tax, so that’s probably something we shouldn’t look at right now,” Sherman said, “but a sales tax, to replace a property tax elimination, it would be a big sales tax and then it would have to be collected by the state.”

Sherman says that’s because not all areas of the state have enough retail establishments that would collect the sales taxes needed to fund local services. “Some counties have a lot of retail, other counties don’t have hardly any retail, so one county would go broke (and) the other would have a…boom and so you would have to collect that centrally by the state and then it would have to be doled out in many ways and that would be a big problem,” Sherman said. “And centralized government always scares me, you know, I believe in decentralized government.”

GOP gubernatorial candidate Brad Sherman on the “Iowa Press” set at Iowa PBS on Oct. 17, 2025. (Iowa PBS photo)

Sherman proposes reducing property taxes for people who’ve lived in Iowa for at least a decade and own their own home. “When you hit 60 or 65 for seniors, that then their primary residence could be tax free. A very small sales tax could cover that, but even that in itself might end up paying for itself because people would stay in Iowa then instead of actually moving to another state when they retire because now they have a home,” Sherman said. “Plus it would protect seniors on low income from losing their homes.”

Sherman made his comments during a recent appearance on “Iowa Press” on Iowa P-B-S. Sherman is a pastor from Williamsburg who served one term in the Iowa House. He launched his campaign for governor in February — before fellow Republican Kim Reynolds announced she would not seek reelection.