PROPERTY TAX

(is Theft!)

“I’m from the government and I’m here to steal even more of your money”

“Total property tax payments during the last decade in South Dakota have increased by nearly 60% for homes, 47% for commercial property and 28% for agricultural property.” - SD Searchlight June 17, 2024

OUCH!

Property Tax Relief.

Surely all good tax paying citizens can come together and join hands in agreement that our property taxes in SD need to be capped and lowered, right? We’re not gonna do the whole burn-your-villages-to-the-ground political warfare wilding out on Facebook groups again, killing any chance of property tax relief because we can’t settle on the “perfect bill”, right?

And to you SD legislators currently serving, you’re not gonna take the side of the State against the citizen again, right? You do understand that it is OUR MONEY we are talking about here, right?

Right…..?

Seriously though, this one should be a SLAM DUNK. Literally every property owner in SD agrees that our property taxes are too high, particularly compared to five years ago, before George Floyd swallowed a bunch of fentanyl while trying to avoid arrest then died of covid which unleashed a global pandemic of racism, lawlessness, government censorship, Fauciism and massive inflation. I might be getting the timeline mixed around a little, but whatever. I’m not here to write history books. I’m here to get our property taxes lowered, and you should be too!

So this week is a good week for us taxpayers. Or is it? I’m hearing that there are several competing property tax bills that will be put forward, which makes me uneasy. Confusion is our enemy; clarity our friend.

I like to think that I speak for the grassroots whenever I write something, but really that’s just what I am trying to do. If I fail - when I fail - I do so out of ignorance, not malice. My agenda is always: People vs. Power. Last week’s article about the Education bills failing, for example. The only target I was aiming for was Manthony and how I saw his destructive lobbying methods torpedoed any chance that we could make any progress against the Leviathan that is Big Ed. Not the homeschool warriors, whom I love. Everyone else that was involved - not counting Big Ed and all of its bureaucratic minions - I do think was sincerely trying to make a positive impact on our broken education system. My criticism wasn’t really personal, but tactical. We need to keep on winning. We need to keep pushing our agenda, and not getting bogged down into personal catfights on faceburg. We’re a family, remember?

I choose to trust the grassroots legislators that so many of us regular folks worked so hard to get elected.

Trust, while keeping tabs on them.

Trust, while asking questions.

Trust, even when we disagree with them.

Trust, until such a time as they show us that they no longer represent the People, but instead do the bidding of Special Intere$t$.

It happens.

Remember, we live in a representative republic. So, they get elected, then they get to go to Pierre and vote their conscience; or vote however their benefactors prefer. Then, if we don’t like the way they vote, we set about finding a candidate to replace them with. Greg Jamison, for example, seems to be voting the way of a man with a terminal illness and nothing to lose. Like the guy who’s doctor told him he had 2 weeks to live. The doctor asked how he was planning to spend what time he had left, and the man answered “I’m going to ask my wife how her day at work went, then for the last 30 minutes I’d like to watch the sunset”.

Speaking of jokes, I’d like to take a moment to honor my friend & SD lifelong true Patriot Dr. Allen Unruh by telling a few few jokes from one of his books:

Candidates tell you everything they know, then keep on talking.

Greater love hath no man than to lay down his friends for his political life.

He calls his campaign promises “New Year’s Resolutions”. That way nobody expects him to keep them.

Nothing is more confusing than the clarification of a political statement

Anyway, back to Property Taxes.

We can extrapolate from the above picture, the Sioux Falls property tax rate is 69% HIGHER than the national average. An no, I don’t want to hear the “bUt wE dOn’T hAvE an iNcOmE tAx!” dimwit rebuttal, because if our taxes are higher in one area than it’s basically a push. We don’t live in Chicago, we live in Sioux Falls. Many of you reading this were born in SD. My wife and I chose to move here over 30 years ago for the specific purpose of starting a business in a city that was ranked “#1 place to live” by Money Magazine; the reasons including: No state income tax, low crime, low property taxes, and less government intrusion in the affairs of men.

Sioux Falls is becoming less and less like that city.

Every single land-owning, property-tax paying citizen of South Dakota - aside from a few tonedeaf politicians - is in favor of lowering and capping our property taxes. Some of us would like to keep pushing the envelope to the point of eliminating them altogether, because otherwise it feels like we are just renting our property from our own government (but shhhhhh, don’t tell the libs, otherwise they won’t let us make any headway whatsoever). And NO , we DO NOT WANT any sneaky politicians (Tony) implementing any new taxes to “replace revenue”. “The Shift”, they call it.

No Shift!

No more BullShift!

You are just going to have to figure out how to do without; just like all of our fellow citizens who are on a fixed income have had to do when they were forced to pay more money to the state based on the totally made up concept of “increased value” in their homes. Their homes that they weren’t selling for a profit. Just living in them, minding their own business. Or at least trying to.

Now maybe you can understand the libertarian mantra of “Taxation is theft” that has become so widely held as truth with American taxpayer.

Look, we may have been okay trudging along like a bunch of lemmings, dutifully paying our property taxes every year like we’ve been doing our whole lives. But then the people in charge of this state chose to ignore the fact that massive inflation in our basic necessities, like food, was combining with an exponential increase in the dollar amount that our counties were demanding from us even though we weren’t benefitting in any way. Mind you, this was happening all over the state, without there being any major infrastructure improvements to our neighborhoods or towns.

Now I’m sure there are some bureaucratic geeks that would love to bicker with me about this, and you are welcome to post in the comments of course. But really, I just don’t care to hear it. None of us want to hear any justifications for this. You should have been capping the percentage back in 2021 when we could all see what was beginning to happen.

But you didn’t, and now we are here.

I am optimistic that we will see some property tax relief out of this current legislative session. But I am hoping that we, the grassroots army, can come together behind one solid bill. Personally, I am a fan of proposed HB1229. I truly believe that a majority of legislators in both chambers want this for their constituents. And the ones that don’t can and should be ridiculed, or ignored. And primaried.

Thanks to MAGA 2.0, Trump47 is showing us the way to take on what has seemed like unbeatable giant problems with our federal government. President Trump is pulling the momentum with him, leading from the front. The naysayers have no voice in the decision-making, and it is beautiful to witness.

Yes, I think we are starting to believe that we can actually just DO THINGS!

One valuable lesson I have learned in running a business is that there are many reasons to NOT do something, many reasons why “it won’t work”, and usually only one way that something will work. A rule of success in entrepreneuring is to never ask a lawyer or accountant their opinion regarding growth and development. They can always be counted on for reasons why it won’t work. That’s their job, actually.

There’s a thousand reasons to leave our property tax system the way it currently is, and only one reason to change it: It is what The People want. How do we know that? Well, if you ask the legislators who spent this past spring knocking on thousands of doors, asking South Dakota homeowners for their votes, the #1 topic that people were angry about was Property Taxes. They will not stand for another session of inaction. They will not stand for a “tax shift”, which is the lingo for simply raising taxes in other areas to make up for “lost revenue”. I will personally make sure to bang on this drum until The People get true relief. It may be difficult. It certainly will be complicated, but hey that’s why you guys make the big bucks haha! Remember: It’s OUR MONEY that you are stealing.

And to any legislators who may be wavering on the idea, because of whatever fear you may harbor, I promise you this: We will not stand for kicking the can down the road, like you did last year.

Fear is appropriate, so long as you fear the right things.