Recently, the Revenue Committee announced its plan for comprehensive tax reform for Nebraskans. While it does provide the income tax relief which some had promised, I believe that it falls short in delivering the property tax relief which Nebraskans desperately need. I have nothing against income tax reform, but it must be delivered hand-in-hand with comprehensive property tax reform. There are no Nebraskans who are facing a choice to close their businesses, sell their belongings, or give up land which has been in their family for generations as a result of the burden of income taxes. But there are farmers, ranchers, and others among our friends and neighbors who are facing those exact choices because they cannot afford to keep paying their property tax bill when it is larger than their income for the year. The sole provision for property tax reform which the Revenue Committee is advancing is LB338, which is a well-intentioned take on the issue. However, my concern is that LB338 won’t provide the degree of relief that is needed. That bill would value land using a capitalization rate – that is, it would assume that the revenue which a piece of land can generate is based on a percentage of the market value of the land. My concern is that, no matter how the capitalization rate is set, this proposal will not give long-term relief.

I will continue to work with many of my fellow senators who were sent here with an explicit mandate to give real property tax relief to all Nebraskans – to those of us in rural areas, and to our friends in the towns and cities. Because if property tax relief lifts off of some, while leaving others struggling, it will only be the beginning of a back-and-forth of each group sending senators to Lincoln to shift the property tax burden back onto someone else. Nebraska needs to be a state where people come when they are young and starting their careers, where they come in middle age to raise a family, and where they come to retire – and to make each of those choices without hesitation that they won’t be able to continue to live in their own home or work their own farm because they are forced to pay substantial rent to the government to keep their own land.