I would like the value of my home to rise, while my property taxes fall

Many of us are inconsistent in our economic desires. I would like the price of my home to rise, because it increases my wealth, but I would also like the prices of all other homes to fall, so that I could sell my house and buy an even nicer house. Also, I would like to have the value of my house rise, but also pay lower property taxes. David Schleicher digs into the second issue in “The Great American Property Tax Freak Out” (posted online at SSRN on September 1, 2026). He writes:

我们许多人在经济诉求上往往前后矛盾。我希望我的房产价格上涨，因为这增加了我的财富，但我也希望其他所有房产的价格下跌，这样我就能卖掉自己的房子去买一套更好的。此外，我既希望房产价值上升，又希望缴纳更少的房产税。大卫·施莱彻（David Schleicher）在《美国房产税大恐慌》（The Great American Property Tax Freak Out，2026年9月1日发布于SSRN）一文中深入探讨了第二个问题。他写道：

In the last three years, a number of states have substantially reformed their property tax systems, providing huge tax benefits to owner-occupied homes and shifting the burden of paying for services like schools and police to commercial property owners (including rental apartment buildings), to other local taxes, and to state funding, which itself largely comes from sources like sales taxes and income taxes. A few, including Florida, Ohio, North Dakota, and Texas, have considered going further, either completely abandoning property taxation for owner-occupied housing or even abandoning property taxation entirely. … One might think that homeowners would be happy that their largest asset has appreciated substantially in value, as homes did, particularly in suburbs, in the post-COVID period. But because property taxes are wealth taxes, property owners have responded to their increasing wealth with political anger, pushing shifts in property tax policy, often leading to increasing rates on commercial property owners who have seen declining values during the same period. …

在过去三年中，一些州对其房产税制度进行了重大改革，为自住型住房提供了巨大的税收优惠，并将支付学校和警察等公共服务的负担转移给了商业地产所有者（包括出租公寓楼）、其他地方税种以及州政府资金——而州政府资金本身主要来自销售税和所得税等来源。包括佛罗里达州、俄亥俄州、北达科他州和德克萨斯州在内的少数几个州甚至考虑走得更远，要么完全放弃对自住型住房征收房产税，要么彻底废除房产税。……人们可能认为，房主会因为他们最大的资产大幅升值而感到高兴，正如新冠疫情后郊区房产所经历的那样。但由于房产税属于财富税，房主们对财富的增加表现出的却是政治上的愤怒，他们推动房产税政策的转变，这往往导致商业地产所有者的税率上升，而这些商业地产在同期价值却在下降。……

[T]hese reforms shift the property tax from a tool homeowners use collectively to provide for locally-wanted services towards a more standard form of redistributive taxation, charging commercial property owners to pay for services for homeowners. Further, they will lead to greater state authority over local governments, less stable funding for local governments (but also less tax foreclosure in recessions), and stricter zoning controls (but more building of homes where it is legal). Perhaps most notably, these property tax reforms will lead to higher housing costs, and thus constitute a substantial transfer of wealth towards people who already own homes and have already seen their net worth increase substantially in the post COVID housing market.

这些改革将房产税从房主集体用于提供本地所需服务的工具，转变为一种更标准的再分配税收形式，即向商业地产所有者收费以支付房主的公共服务费用。此外，这些改革将导致州政府对地方政府拥有更大的权力，地方政府的资金来源变得不那么稳定（但在经济衰退时期因欠税导致的止赎也会减少），并带来更严格的土地分区管制（但在合法区域会有更多的住房建设）。或许最值得注意的是，这些房产税改革将导致住房成本上升，从而构成了向那些已经拥有住房且在新冠疫情后房地产市场中净资产已大幅增加的人群进行的巨额财富转移。

A few other facts and insights seem worth appending here.

在此有必要补充一些其他事实和见解。

1. there’s a lot of local variation across public finance in the United States. But as a broad statement, property taxes are the major own-source of revenue for local US governments, and in turn the main source of financing for local schools. Many local governments have traditionally relied on property taxes to pay for police as well. The political dynamic of reducing property taxes often involves state-level actions that limit or block property taxes at the local level. It is not clear that voters for lower public services.

1）美国各地的公共财政存在很大差异。但从宏观层面来看，房产税是美国地方政府主要的自有收入来源，进而也是地方学校的主要资金来源。许多地方政府传统上也依赖房产税来支付警察费用。降低房产税的政治动态通常涉及州层面的行动，即限制或阻碍地方层面的房产税。目前尚不清楚支持降低房产税的选民是否意识到了这与地方公共服务减少的可能性之间的联系。

2. the property tax is a form of wealth tax, and it has the standard problems of a wealth tax: specifically, you can have more wealth–say, the value of your home, your business, or your retirement account went up–without having immediate income to pay a higher level of taxes. Thus, older voters who tend to have higher accumulated wealth, partly in the form of home equity, but also lower current income, are a politically powerful and sympathetic group in the push to reduce or eliminate property taxes.

2）房产税是一种财富税，它具有财富税的典型问题：具体而言，你可能拥有更多的财富——比如你的房产、企业或退休账户价值上涨——但却没有足够的即时收入来支付更高水平的税款。因此，那些往往拥有较高累积财富（部分以房屋净值形式存在）但当前收入较低的老年选民，在推动减少或取消房产税的过程中，是一个具有政治影响力和同情分的人群。

3. If property taxes are reduced or abolished, the cost of owning a home falls. (For example, imagine that you could guarantee that the roof, exterior, driveway, plumbing and HVAC systems in your house would never need repair or replacement, which would also lead to a fall in the cost of owning a home.) With lower costs of owning a home, the market value of the home rises. Thus, the ironic outcome is that higher housing prices cause voters to want to limit or repeal property taxes, which would then lead to even higher housing prices. Moreover, the current homeowners who have already benefited from higher home values will benefit further, while homeownership will look even costlier for potential future homebuyers.

3）如果房产税减少或废除，拥有住房的成本就会下降。（例如，想象一下，如果你能保证家里的屋顶、外墙、车道、管道和暖通空调系统永远不需要维修或更换，这也会导致拥有住房的成本下降。）随着拥有住房成本的降低，房产的市场价值就会上升。因此，讽刺的结果是，更高的房价促使选民想要限制或废除房产税，而这又会导致房价进一步上涨。此外，已经从房价上涨中受益的现有房主将获得更多利益，而对于潜在的未来购房者来说，拥有住房将显得更加昂贵。