Property Tax Remains the Fairest Way to Pay

Randy Prince

[Reprinted from The Oregonian, Wednesday, 20 November 1991]

In all the commotion caused by Measure 5, will the benefits of taxing real estate be forgotten? Property taxes serve to keep a lid on housing-price inflation. And in part, the property tax does fall on people who can afford it, people who owe society a fair share of their wealth in real estate.

There is reason to think Measure 5's prescription for Oregon will eventually go the same way as the levy-based system the Legislature abandoned this year. In California, Proposition 13, the inspiration for Oregon's taxpayer revolt, is now heavily criticized for its unfairness and may be thrown out in court.

Like Measure 5, Proposition 13 shows too little concern for the ability to pay in reapportioning the tax burden. Oregon's property-tax bill may have been too high for the average homeowner before Measure 5, but now, as rates are being lowered and equalized statewide, taxation will be even less in accord with the ability to pay.

Moderate- and low-income Oregonians would be better off with an exemption of $50,000 worth of improvements (house, apartments or mixed-use buildings) than with the flat-rate limit prescribed by Measure 5 or any of the regressive tax alternatives now under consideration. This would shift the property-tax burden to the land component of real property. Vacant lots, high-end residential investment properties and some commercial holdings would pay more.

Most Oregonians now will see little economic relief because low tax rates only feed real-estate price inflation. Well-meaning but ill-conceived federal income-tax policies such as the home-mortgage interest deduction have already brought us permanent long-term inflation in real estate. Housing has become unaffordable for many. Low property-tax rates make it worse.

If you don't believe low taxes on speculative commodities, such as a good residential location, lead to inflation, look at California. The single-family homestead is nothing more than a repository for hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax-sheltered equity. Fine if you already have a house and are ready to cash out; otherwise it's a prescription for economic injustice.

Oregon's housing environment has many of the same desirable qualities as our neighbor to the south. Now that Oregon's real-estate taxes have been lowered, you can bet Californians are bringing their equity north to stake their claim on real estate here, inflating the price of housing.

Limiting total property taxes instead of differentiating between the classes of real property does nothing to dampen the runaway real-estate speculation that has put our economy on shaky ground.

Buildings and other improvements depreciate and are replacable at free-market prices; neither new construction nor renovation contributes to inflation. But the value of a well-situated piece of land reflects demand for title to something that is relatively fixed in supply, priced according to volatile factors in the national economy and enjoying benefits due simply to being located within a particular community or governmental jurisdiction.

There is no good reason why individuals should profit from the ownership of land. Why not exempt the average value of a house or small shop from property taxation and shift the load onto the land investor, who can better afford to pay?

The tax assessors can see where the wealth is. That is why, in order to evade the intent of Measure 5, they are reappraising property with flimsy guidelines and new rules that give them immunity from citizen appeals as to their judgment.

They may even have good intentions. But rather than continuing down a road to tax hell, let's reaffirm the notion of a progressive property taxation that Oregon has stood for for so long, this time with a $50,000 improvements exemption, and avoid losing both due process and our remaining affordable housing.