Blue Oregon, October of 2013, posted another op-ed by our own duo of Tom Gihring and Kris Nelson on fixing the state’s clunky tax structure.

Let’s turn the tide on a broken tax structure

Oct. 25, 2013

Excerpt:

Another proposal, heard in the House Revenue Committee, would invite fresh air into the asphyxiating property tax structure we have endured for over twenty years. Imagine what an “ideal tax” would look like: it would stimulate local economies by encouraging business growth and community redevelopment, make housing more affordable, dampen rampant inflation of land values, achieve equitable and uniform participation, and wrap effective limitations in revenue growth around it. We know these results are possible because many communities in Pennsylvania as well as Multnomah County some 80 years ago showed how to turn the property tax into an economic engine similar to how we design Enterprise Zones – without revenue losses.

There’s no refuting the fact that a tax on improvement values stifles investment in buildings and businesses; that is why Enterprise Zone rules are designed to suspend the improvement portion of the property tax rate. If we can encourage capital investment by shifting the property tax onto publicly created land values, we will minimize the economic drag of the property tax. Furthermore, doing away with the inequitable rate limitations of Measures 5 and 50 and replacing them with revenue limits instead would solve the strangling compression problem of local funding measures that make it impossible to support basic services.