Empower the Taxpayer

Here is an Article from Say Anything Blog

Abolish Property Taxes In North Dakota?
Yes We Can

Ralph Kingsbury, writing in the Grand Forks Herald, offers a defense of a measure that will be on the North Dakota ballot in June of 2012 to abolish the state’s property taxes.
It’s well worth a read. An excerpt:

Next year in North Dakota, we will be voting on eliminating property taxes. I understand the valid concerns some have about removing this system of taxation, but I also know that the system is broken.
I am old enough to remember the arguments about the personal property tax system and how people said it could neither be eliminated nor replaced. Then both of those things happened; and so, too, can the property tax system be zeroed out.

I think the mistake a lot of people make when thinking about this proposal to end property taxes is that they think of it merely as tax reduction. That’s a mistake. What this would be is a change in the way we’re taxed. We’d move from a tax that’s terribly expensive and invasive to support, one that has us paying rent to our property to the government even long after we’ve paid off the mortgage, to other forms of taxation.
I won’t deny that ending property taxes would take a heavy chunk away from the state’s tax revenues. I won’t deny that losing said revenue would drive up other forms of taxes. What I am arguing is that we will have a healthier taxing regime in North Dakota without the property tax.
The long-term economic boons of eliminating the property far outweigh the short-term headaches of restructuring our statewide tax code.
Tags: North Dakota News, property taxes