(Radio Iowa) – A bill that would significantly change the property tax system for Iowa homeowners has cleared the Senate. Senator Dan Dawson, a Republican from Council Bluffs, calls it the first step toward a plan that can win approval in the Iowa House and be signed into law by Governor Reynolds.”This is not the final product, but we have to start to move towards a conclusion in this,” Dawson said, “and I do believe this bill is a good faith effort to finding that compromise within this General Assembly.” The bill passed on a 41-to-four vote. All but one Democrat voted for it and Dawson says that affirms the plan is headed in the right direction.
“Property taxes aren’t a Republican or a Democrat thing. It’s an Iowa thing,” Dawson said. “I mean across the board you hear…but you see in polling it’s the number one issue you hear across all political parties.” Senator Tony Bisignano, a Democrat from Des Moines, says the bill’s not perfect, but it’s a good opener for negotiations. “This is a substantial bill and there were commitments made at the beginning of session that we were going to see substantial change, not tweaks as we’ve done over the past, but significant in the direction that property taxes need to go,” Bisignano said.
“Are we going to agree at the end on all of it? Of course not, but there is no doubt that this bill helps the residential homeowner.” The bill would cap city and county revenue growth between two and five percent, based on inflation. It would replace Iowa’s system that limits how fast the taxable value home grows with a 50 percent homestead tax exemption. Dawson says that exemption would start growing for Iowans once they reach the age of 60 — and by the time a homeowner turns 100, they would pay no property tax at all.
“No more bandage approaches, like we’ve got to rebuild the system,” Dawson said. “…The past 20 year’s worth of efforts have not yielded anything different. We’ve got to do something entirely different here.” The bill also calls for an immediate increase in the gas tax, followed by incremental gas tax increases in the future that are tied to inflation. Dawson says cities and counties need that money to fix roads and bridges.
“If we’re going to have an honest, open negotiation everything should be on the table,” Dawson said. “…It can’t just be cut, cut, cut the entire time. We have to acknowledge if we want to go steep on property taxes, we’ve got to find some other ways for government to do business.” Dawson says without the kind of major overhaul outlined in the Senate’s bill, Iowa property taxes will remain among the top 10 highest in the country. House Republicans have been working on their own property tax plan, but have not yet indicated when it will come up for a vote in the House.
