06/22/2026
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CNN 6/22/2026
America is in the middle of the biggest property tax revolt in 50 years
By Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN
Updated: 6:00 AM EDT, Thu June 18, 2026
Source: CNN
Oviedo, a bedroom community outside Orlando, has been trying to build a new police station for a decade.
The dilapidated windows in the 36-year-old station are leaking water and it’s too cramped for Oviedo’s growing police force. Oviedo (pronounced oh-VEE-doh) has finalized plans for a modern $18 million station with officer training facilities and space for its K-9 dogs.
But the city may not need a new police station. Oviedo soon may not even have a police department at all.
In November, Florida voters will decide on a ballot amendment that would remove roughly 60% of Florida residents from the property tax rolls. Property taxes generate half of Oviedo’s revenue, funding its police, fire and parks department.
If the ballot proposal passes, the city would fold the police department after savings run dry in a year and hand policing responsibilities over to Seminole County, Oviedo Mayor Megan Sladek said.
“What kind of fools would we be to invest in a police station when we don’t know whether we can afford to operate a police department?” she said in a phone interview with CNN.
Florida is the epicenter of the largest property tax backlash in America since the 1970s. Taxes on land and buildings are the largest revenue source for most local governments. But real-estate values have surged almost 27% faster than inflation since 2020, fueling homeowners’ anger over higher tax bills on their properties.
Thirty-four states passed property tax reforms from 2020 to 2025, according to the National Association of Counties.
Ohio, Indiana and Wyoming passed property tax cuts last year. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has proposed eliminating the school property tax for homeowners and using the state’s budget surplus to backfill funding. Groups in North Dakota and Ohio have gathered signatures for state ballot amendments to abolish property taxes altogether.
“We’re experiencing a new property tax revolt,” said Jared Walczak, a senior fellow at the right-leaning Tax Foundation. The populist right has led the charge, breaking with traditional fiscal conservatives who long favored property taxes because they were closely connected to local decision-making.
The property tax rebellion is part of a broader push on both the right and left to give tax exemptions to seniors, workers who rely on tips, and the bottom 50% of the country to address cost-of-living pressures.
Florida’s ballot amendment would ripple through local governments. Florida has no personal income tax, so municipalities rely primarily on property and sales taxes to fund services. While sales taxes fluctuate, property taxes stabilize local coffers.
Some cash-strapped jurisdictions say the measure would handcuff their ability to pay for services, and they’d respond by making cuts or consolidating. Other local governments may try to close the revenue gap by hiking taxes on renters, businesses or second homeowners.
“It would just be this crazy domino effect of messed up, unintended consequences,” Sladek said.
Florida’s homestead exemption
Florida’s legislature recently approved the ballot initiative to increase the tax exemption on homesteads (primary residences) from $50,000 to $250,000 by 2028. The exemption would rise at the same rate as inflation every year after.
The proposal would also reduce the current 10% cap on annual assessment increases of non-homestead properties, rental buildings and commercial properties to 5%.
Sixty percent of Florida voters must approve the amendment.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis asked the state legislature to approve a ballot amendment that would eventually abolish all property taxes, but lawmakers passed a narrower measure increasing the homestead exemption instead. It shields property tax funding for public schools.
“People should not be permanent renters to the government,” said Hector Roos, chair of the Libertarian Party of Miami-Dade County. He hopes passage of the ballot measure is a step toward ending property taxes in the state.
Florida property tax levies have increased by more than 40% in the last three years, rising faster than population and inflation. He said the amendment would rein in government spending and make the state a more affordable place to live.
DeSantis proposed a state trust fund to provide grants to local governments to help them offset losses, but no backstop funding provision is on the ballot.
Counties in the state would lose $3.6 billion in 2027 and $6.4 billion in 2028 if the amendment passes, the Florida Association of Counties estimates.
Wealthier, coastal areas like Palm Beach and Miami can close funding gaps by raising taxes on luxury second homes. But in many inland parts of the state there are few properties worth more than $250,000 and limited commercial tax bases, officials say.
Nearly half of Florida’s 67 counties are already officially designated as “fiscally constrained” and receive state funding to help level up their tax collections.
“Now they’re making everybody fiscally constrained,” Mayor Sladek said. “Where’s the phantom money coming from?”
Homeowners over renters
The anti-property tax effort is reminiscent of an earlier wave of revolts during the 1970s and 1980s.
In 1978, California voters, angry over runaway inflation and soaring property values, passed Proposition 13, limiting property tax increases in the state to no higher than 2% a year.
“It’s a tax that is easy to demonize, even though it has this long-running American history,” said David Schleicher, a professor of property and urban law at Yale University. People get angry about property taxes because they can’t feel the rise in their home value in their wallets, but they suddenly have to pay more in taxes, he said.
Proposition 13 galvanized a nationwide tax revolt and enshrined the modern system of property taxes.
Today’s structure typically privileges wealthier and long-term homeowners over new owners and renters. Assessment caps allow homeowners who purchased decades ago to pay taxes on homes well below current market values, while new buyers can face much larger bills for nearly identical homes.
“I can live in the exact same house as my neighbor, but because I’ve lived here for 20 years that person is paying four or five times as much in taxes as I am for the same services,” Sladek said.
