MML#3 – Petitioners Seek to End Property Tax in Michigan, and What That Would Mean for Residents
(Crystal A. Proxmire, March 28, 2024)
Lansing, MI – Signatures are being collected across the state in an effort to put eliminating property tax on the ballot in Michigan.
Anthony Minghine, Deputy Executive Director at Michigan Municipal League, spoke about the effort at the league’s recent capital conference. MML, which works with cities, townships and villages across the state, is opposed to the proposed Constitutional amendment, because it would mean a loss of $17.5 billion to state and local budgets.
“Normally I start the conference off with something positive. Today I’m going to do the opposite,” Minghine said.
He explained that property tax accounts for about 50% of cities’ general funds. Property tax also helps to fund a number of governmental functions including public safety authorities, DDAs, libraries, TIF districts, school districts, and more.
“The cuts to schools roughly equals the cost of all teacher salaries,” Minghine said. “The state general fund would be cut by $4 billion.”
The proposal would prohibit state, county, and municipal property tax.
It would require 2/3 of voters to approve local taxes.
It would require 2/3 vote of the legislature to increase any state tax to raise revenue by more than .1% over 5 years.
It would increase the percentage of state sales tax revenue distributed to local governments from 15% to 20% and from 0% to 10% for counties.
It would require municipalities and counties to each receive 10% of tax revenue from income, marijuana, alcohol and tobacco.
And it would require tax revenue to be only used on essential government and infrastructure services.
Minghine explained that the spending restriction would prohibit the funding of elections, trash collection and recycling, senior programs, jails, and parks and rec.
“Technically you can’t cut the grass outside city hall,” Minghine said.
“It would absolutely devastate every community in this state,” he said. “No one would be unharmed… It would cost thousands of thousands of jobs.”
Petitions are being circulated by AXMITAX, with founder and Director being Karla Wagner who is the owner of an antique shop and a real estate agent in Rockford, MI, just north of Grand Rapids. In a presentation available on the website, Wagner said “We have people that are being forced to sell their house… You start adding three, four, five, six, seven, eight hundred dollars a month for services you don’t even use.”
The AXMITAX website says they have two goals. “Stop foreclosures and restore true property ownership” and “Prevent spend happy politicians from immediately jacking up taxes in other areas.”
The site also notes that eliminating property tax means more money for businesses. “This measure is expected to significantly benefit small businesses, reduce operational costs, and stimulate economic growth throughout the state by creating a more attractive environment for business investment and development.” This would not just apply to small businesses, but to larger corporations as well.
AXMITAX says that as far as education, tax money is not just being used on books and teachers, but on extracurricular things.“The rest of the mileages are applied to football stadiums, baseball fields, jumbotrons, and many other non-educational expenditures. Now, we’re not saying those things aren’t important, we’re saying there’s plenty to go around and when Michigan citizens have no property taxes there is more community funding, not just the tax payers.
“Furthermore, the businesses in your community, after having been freed from property taxes, are going to more willing to step up and support the extracurricular activities of the schools in your community.”
If the proposal passes, Michigan would be the only state in the nation not to have a property tax. The group has until July to get 446,198 signatures for the amendment to be placed on the ballot.
AXMITAX did not respond to our request for comment. For more on AXMITAX visit https://www.axmitax.org For more information from Michigan Municipal League, check out their talking points at https://blogs.mml.org/wp/cc/files/2024/03/AxeMiTax-Talking-Points-Final.pdf
This story is part of a series of stories from the Michigan Municipal League Capital Conference which took place in Lansing on March 12-13. Learn more about MML at https://mml.org/. Read more Oakland County Times stories from MML trainings and conferences here.