CHEYENNE — Is it time for Wyoming to drastically change its property tax system?
It could happen if for no other reason than to develop a coherent system that the public and other legislators can understand.
Clearly, the bundle of property tax cuts and changes made in recent years has produced a chaotic system that muddles the mind to figure out exactly what is happening.
The recent meeting of the Legislature’s joint interim Revenue Committee revealed the scope of the problem facing lawmakers.
At that meeting, Sen. Bob Ide, R-Casper, called for the draft of a constitutional amendment that would change the constitution to eliminate property taxes.
“We’ve got layers upon layers of exemptions, you know,” Ide said, according to Cowboy State Daily. “We’ve got caps. We’ve got refunds. We’ve got sunsets (expiration dates for laws). We’ve got primary residence (requirements).”
“For the common person to understand what their property taxes are, you’d have to hire teachers,” he added.
Ide is correct. It has become a mess.
Ide also said a sales tax “is the only way we’re trying to muck out all of this layered minutiae of property taxes, It’s really the only fair way to go. At least you have a choice on a consumption tax.”
The question is whether the Legislature will ever agree to swap part of a property tax for a consumptive tax like a sales tax.
Rep. Steve Harshman R-Casper, a former House Speaker, tried twice to get his bill passed to impose a two percent increase in the four percent state sales tax to replace the property tax or most of it. His efforts occurred first in 2024 with House Bill 203 and in 2025 with House Bill 290.
The Legislature apparently wasn’t ready for the radical change.
Both bills failed. The 2025 version never even got heard in the House.
One of the arguments against an increase in the sales tax is that it is regressive — it places more of a burden on lower income people who must spend more of their income on sales taxes than the wealthy do.
But the state also has a slew of sales tax exemptions, Harshman pointed out in an interview last week. He named groceries, rent, fuel, insurance, child care, prescriptions, water bills and cable.
Also, Wyoming’s visitors share the sales tax burden. They pay 15 percent of the total sales tax collected.
Harshman also noted that Wyoming has one of the lowest property tax burdens in the country.
That is true. According to Forbes, Wyoming is ninth in the nation among the states with the lowest property tax rates. Hawaii is the first.
In sum, Harshman said of Wyoming’s property tax laws —”Basically we’ve got a really good system.”
But, during the Covid pandemic, people from other parts of the country moved here, bought homes and raised the overall values of housing. As a result the cost of buying a house rose way too high in about five counties.
So did property taxes and the homeowners complained.
Most of the revenue from property tax goes to local schools, not the state, and is an essential resource.
The mineral industry pays roughly half the property taxes. The industry does not favor the switch to sales taxes which would be a barrier to converting to a new system.
Yet one benefit of the switch would be to free up the $30 million per year now paid for the property refund program for low income people that could be used to help replace the property tax revenue loss.
Meanwhile the Joint Interim Revenue Committee continues to mull the draft of a constitutional amendment to dump property taxes
Wisely, the committee members have delayed any final decision until its meeting in August
Messing with the constitution without serious consideration is not smart. Such a move can bite back.
Contact Joan Barron at 307-632-2534 or jmbarron@bresnan.net
