Legislators suggest task force tackle challenge of property tax reform
The Legislature's Taxation Committee hears public feedback on bill proposals in Augusta. (Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star)
With bipartisan agreement that Maine's property tax burden is too high, legislators are pushing for some tweaks to tax credits this year, however they're holding off on substantial reform until a task force can study the issue.
Among its work on 18 bills on Thursday, the Taxation Committee removed the policy changes from a bipartisan plan from legislative leadership to provide property tax relief. Instead, the committee members unanimously agreed the bill should be exclusively focused on the creation of a task force that would report back legislative recommendations starting next year.
'The truth of the matter is with 2,000 bills that we're working in five months,' said co-chair Sen. Nicole Grohowski (D-Hancock), 'I actually think taking a break and being able to focus on one thing for a period of time is the way we can get the best outcome for Maine people.'
The Maine Legislature is approaching its expected final month of work for the first year of the two-year session and is overall considering dozens of bills that aim to reform property taxes.
Some have received favorable votes from the Taxation Committee including on Thursday a plan to expand the Property Tax Fairness Credit. The committee also earlier advanced a proposal to increase the state's tax exemption for homeowners and another to expand property tax relief for veterans and their survivors, with the latter passing both the Maine House of Representatives and Senate this week.
The committee's recommendations largely fell in line with the positions of Gov. Janet Mills' administration, including committee members unanimously opposing on Thursday attempts to reinstate previously repealed programs related to property taxes.
'We did take the time and really work the task force,' Rep. Shelley Rudnicki (R-Fairfield) said, referring to the several hours the committee spent Thursday morning hashing out the details of its composition and deadlines. 'I think it makes sense right now to go that way rather than try to piecemeal things.'
A bipartisan bill, LD 1770 sponsored by Senate President Mattie Daughtry (D-Brunswick) and co-sponsored by House Speaker Ryan Fecteau (D-Biddeford) and Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart (R-Aroostook), among others, initially sought to both increase the property tax fairness credit and establish a Real Estate Property Tax Relief Task Force.
The committee unanimously decided to advance an amended version of the bill that only included the latter, which now sets LD 1770 on a likely path to passage. The Mills administration had some concerns about the policy changes in LD 1770 given the tight budget year but was fully supportive of the task force component.
Stating that they'd like to wait for the recommendations from this task force for major reform, the committee unanimously rejected most of the other property tax bills it considered on Thursday. These included LDs 432, 1304, 1464, 1537, 1591, 1610, 1729 and 1798.
'We are taking all of this, all of this information, seriously,' said Rep. Tracy Quint (R-Hodgdon), 'and that is why we are sending it over to the task force, because they can take the appropriate amount of time to see which bills can be properly worked and implemented.'
Other lawmakers withdrew their own bills, including Rep. Steven Foster (R-Dexter) who withdrew LD 614, which sought to modify certain property tax assessment methods.
'I believe a long term answer to this problem requires much more than occasional increases to the Homestead exemption, tax credits, or other temporary fixes,' Foster said. 'I think the task force and its work this bill would establish may provide that answer.'
Daughtry had outlined that the task force would be required to be geographically diverse and composed of legislators, economists, tax experts, real estate professionals and representatives of low-income and older residents.
The committee added additional specifications, including that those representing low-income and older residents be people with that lived experience and that one member must represent municipalities with fewer than 10,000 residents and different forms of government — i.e. both cities and towns.
While the committee had wanted the task force to complete its work within the current 132nd Legislature, it ultimately compromised, given concerns about staff workload in light of changes on the federal level raised by Michael Allen, associate commissioner for Tax Policy in the Department of Administrative and Financial Services.
With the Republican majority in U.S. Congress pushing for a budget plan with new tax breaks, cuts to Medicaid and other programs, Maine state government will likely have to return to readjust state spending and operations once the details are finalized, Allen said.
'That means we're looking at conformity sometime in the middle of the summer of a very complicated bill, which is going to probably require this committee to come in to evaluate any proposal by the governor,' Allen said. 'It may take two or three weeks just to figure out what exactly Congress did and its impact on state revenue.'
Therefore, the committee agreed to have the task force issue an interim report in January 2026, but also have the ability to continue its work until December 2026, when a final report would be due.
Rep. Gregory Lewis Swallow (R-Houlton) was alone in offering a different take on the task force. He thinks limiting it to only studying property taxes is too narrow.
'Everything is synergistic on this issue,' Swallow said. 'When you deal with one tax, you're dealing with another tax.'
The state has incrementally expanded the Property Tax Fairness Credit, the latest of which occurred last year. The credit allows taxpayers to receive back a portion of their property tax or rent paid during the tax year, with the value calculated by the degree to which the 'base benefit' exceeds 4% four of a person's annual income.
In the 2023 tax year, the state essentially returned just under $80 million to taxpayers through the credit and after the latest expansion the state has returned about $115 million to taxpayers in 2024, though that number may change as returns come in.
Allen said 33,463 taxpayers have benefitted from the expansion, with an average tax cut of $678, including 7,672 people who would have earlier been ineligible.
Another adjustment could be coming.
The committee unanimously voted to advance LD 715, sponsored by Rep. Nina Azella Milliken (D-Blue Hill), which would allow for people over the age of 65 with an annual income of $36,000 or less to receive a credit equal to the amount by which the 'base benefit' exceeds 3% of their annual income, a decrease from the current 4%.
Former state Rep. Ron Russell introduced this plan last session, and while his bill passed both chambers, it ultimately did not get funded.
On the other hand, the committee voted 8-3 against LD 1665, sponsored by Sen. Anne Carney (D-Cumberland), which covered similar ground but with a wider scope. It proposed increasing the benefit base to varying levels based on age and number of children.
The majority of the committee ultimately rejected the plan, with Grohowski and Quint agreeing that the state shouldn't muddy the waters by adding another track for people with dependents to the property tax fairness credit when the state already has a specific child tax credit, which the committee has separately recommended be expanded.
Enacted in 2022, the Property Tax Stabilization Program allowed people 65 years old and over to freeze their property taxes at the previous year's level regardless of income, as long as they owned a permanent residence for at least 10 years and were eligible to receive a homestead exemption. Mills allowed the law to take effect without her signature.
However, the Legislature repealed that program after just one year in effect, following skyrocketing cost projections, concern about wealthy property owners taking advantage due to a lack of income restrictions and the administrative burden it left on municipalities.
The eligibility expansion for the Property Tax Fairness Credit and the creation of a Property Tax Deferral Program had been some of the ways lawmakers tried to soften the blow of this repeal last session.
With unanimous votes among those present, the Taxation Committee rejected Republican proposals to reinstate the program, albeit with some changes aimed to address the program's shortcomings.
LD 1481, sponsored by Rep. Wayne Parry (R-Arundel), would add income limits for eligibility, and LD 1541, sponsored by Sen. Joseph Martin (R-Oxford), would exempt all Mainers over 65 from property taxes. The latter bill is co-sponsored by Republican leaders, Sen. Trey Stewart of Aroostook and Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham of Winter Harbor.
'We should have fixed it,' Parry said of the program during a Wednesday press conference, 'not gotten rid of it.'
In 2024, the Legislature repealed a law that limited the total levy that could be raised by a municipality via property taxes each year. LD 542, which is sponsored by Rep. Jeffrey Sean Adams (R-Lebanon), proposed reestablishing municipal property tax levy limits.
The State and Local Government Committee was split on the proposal and not along party lines. Six legislators voted for its passage, while six voted against it. The majority of the House opposed the bill on Tuesday, with a 79-62 vote against passage, and the Senate tabled it on Wednesday.
Regardless of how the Legislature's final votes come down, the Mills administration is also opposed to both bills, so they would likely get vetoed.
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
16 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
GOP tax bill would ease regulations on gun silencers and some rifles and shotguns
Advertisement Republicans who have long supported the changes, along with the gun industry, say the tax infringes on Second Amendment rights. They say silencers are mostly used by hunters and target shooters for sport. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'Burdensome regulations and unconstitutional taxes shouldn't stand in the way of protecting American gun owners' hearing,' said Clyde, who owns two gun stores in Georgia and often wears a pin shaped like an assault rifle on his suit lapel. Democrats are fighting to stop the provision, which was unveiled days after two Minnesota state legislators were shot in their homes, as the bill speeds through the Senate. They argue that loosening regulations on silencers could make it easier for criminals and active shooters to conceal their weapons. Advertisement 'Parents don't want silencers on their streets, police don't want silencers on their streets,' said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. The gun language has broad support among Republicans and has received little attention as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., work to settle differences within the party on cuts to Medicaid and energy tax credits, among other issues. But it is just one of hundreds of policy and spending items included to entice members to vote for the legislation that could have broad implications if the bill is enacted within weeks, as Trump wants. Inclusion of the provision is also a sharp turn from the climate in Washington just three years ago when Democrats, like Republicans now, controlled Congress and the White House and pushed through bipartisan gun legislation. The bill increased background checks for some buyers under the age of 21, made it easier to take firearms from potentially dangerous people and sent millions of dollars to mental health services in schools. Passed in the summer of 2022, just weeks after the shooting of 19 children and two adults at a school in Uvalde, Texas, it was the most significant legislative response to gun violence in decades. Three years later, as they try to take advantage of their consolidated power in Washington, Republicans are packing as many of their longtime priorities as possible, including the gun legislation, into the massive, wide-ranging bill that Trump has called 'beautiful.' 'I'm glad the Senate is joining the House to stand up for the Second Amendment and our Constitution, and I will continue to fight for these priorities as the Senate works to pass President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill,' said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who was one of the lead negotiators on the bipartisan gun bill in 2022 but is now facing a primary challenge from the right in his bid for reelection next year. Advertisement If the gun provisions remain in the larger legislation and it is passed, silencers and the short-barrel rifles and shotguns would lose an extra layer of regulation that they are subject to under the National Firearms Act, passed in the 1930s in response to concerns about mafia violence. They would still be subject to the same regulations that apply to most other guns — and that includes possible loopholes that allow some gun buyers to avoid background checks when guns are sold privately or online. Larry Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, who supports the legislation, says changes are aimed at helping target shooters and hunters protect their hearing. He argues that the use of silencers in violent crimes is rare. 'All it's ever intended to do is to reduce the report of the firearm to hearing safe levels,' Keane says. Speaking on the floor before the bill passed the House, Rep. Clyde said the bill restores Second Amendment rights from 'over 90 years of draconian taxes.' Clyde said Johnson included his legislation in the larger bill 'with the purest of motive.' 'Who asked for it? I asked,' said Clyde, who ultimately voted for the bill after the gun silencer provision was added. Clyde was responding to Rep. Maxwell Frost, a 28-year-old Florida Democrat, who went to the floor and demanded to know who was responsible for the gun provision. Frost, who was a gun-control activist before being elected to Congress, called himself a member of the 'mass shooting generation' and said the bill would help 'gun manufacturers make more money off the death of children and our people.' Advertisement Among other concerns, control advocates say less regulation for silencers could make it harder for law enforcement to stop an active shooter. 'There's a reason silencers have been regulated for nearly a century: They make it much harder for law enforcement and bystanders to react quickly to gunshots,' said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. Schumer and other Democrats are trying to convince the Senate parliamentarian to drop the language as she reviews the bill for policy provisions that aren't budget-related. 'Senate Democrats will fight this provision at the parliamentary level and every other level with everything we've got,' Schumer said earlier this month.
Boston Globe
26 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
GOP can't include limits on Trump lawsuits in megabill, Senate official rules
'Individual district judges -- who don't even have authority over any of the other 92 district courts -- are single-handedly vetoing policies the American people elected President Trump to implement,' Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairm of the Judiciary Committee, said in announcing the proposal in March. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Republicans are pushing their bill to carry out Trump's agenda through Congress using special rules that shield legislation from a filibuster, depriving Democrats of the ability to block it. But to qualify for that protection, the legislation must only include proposals that directly change federal spending and not add to long-term deficits. Advertisement The Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, makes such judgments. She ruled that the measure did not meet the requirements, according to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. 'Senate Republicans tried to write Donald Trump's contempt for the courts into law -- gutting judicial enforcement, defying the Constitution, and bulldozing the very rule of law that forms our democracy,' Schumer said in a statement. 'It was nothing short of an assault on the system of checks and balances that has anchored this nation since its founding.' Advertisement Senate Republicans sought to target the preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders that often block administration policies. Republicans in the House passed a measure in their version of their party's major policy bill to impose limits on federal judges' power to hold people in contempt. The actions came as federal judges have opened inquiries about whether to hold the Trump administration in contempt for violating their orders in cases related to its aggressive deportation efforts. The decision on Sunday is part of a broader review MacDonough is conducting of the Republican-written legislation, which includes large tax cuts and reductions in social programs such as Medicaid and food stamps. She ruled that Republicans could include in their bill a divisive measure that would block states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., opposes that provision and has said he intends to introduce an amendment to try to kill the measure. MacDonough also rejected a GOP plan to push some of the costs of nutrition assistance, formerly known as SNAP, onto the states, a ruling that has sent Republicans back to the drawing board to find another strategy for covering tens of billions of dollars of the bill's cost. She was expected to work into the week evaluating the measure and instructing Republicans to strip out any provision she deems out of order, including whether they can use a budget trick that would make extending the 2017 tax cuts appear to be free. Advertisement If Republicans fail to remove the measures she deems out of order, Democrats could challenge the bill on the floor, forcing Republicans to muster 60 votes to advance it. That would effectively kill the legislation since Democrats are solidly opposed. This article originally appeared in
Black America Web
an hour ago
- Black America Web
Social Security Projected To 'Go-Broke' Earlier Than Expected
Source: filo / Getty I'm 32, and for as long as I can remember, I've heard about how Social Security was on its way to being depleted. It's been a known issue, yet there's been no meaningful legislation to address it. As a result, rising health costs and recent legislation have led to the projected 'go-broke' date moving up for both Social Security and Medicare. According to AP, an annual report released on Wednesday projects the go-broke date for the Social Security trust will occur in 2034, a year up from last year's projection of 2035. For Medicare, the new date was a bit more drastic, going up from 2036 to 2033. Now, to be clear, the go-broke date doesn't mean benefits will be stopped outright. It simply means payouts will be given at a reduced rate. For Social Security, it's estimated that benefit payouts would be capped at 81 percent, and for Medicare, the government provided health insurance that covers people age 65 and older, it's estimated that payments would only cover 89 percent of costs for patients' hospital visits, hospice care, and nursing home stays. This reduction would significantly affect the 68 million Americans currently enrolled in Medicare, The Social Security and Medicare trust funds are overseen by four trustees. The Treasury Secretary serves as managing trustee, with the Secretaries of Labor, Health and Human Services, and the Commissioner of Social Security being the other three. The trustee board technically has two other presidentially-appointed and Senate-confirmed trustees who serve as public representatives, but those roles have been empty for over a decade. 'Current-law projections indicate that Medicare still faces a substantial financial shortfall that needs to be addressed with further legislation. Such legislation should be enacted sooner rather than later to minimize the impact on beneficiaries, providers, and taxpayers,' the trustees state in the report. The go-broke date for Social Security has fluctuated quite a bit in recent years, with annual reports from recent years projecting 'go-broke' dates in 2026, 2028, and 2031, respectively. A poll conducted by AP last month revealed that 3 in 10 Americans over 60 are not confident that Social Security benefits would be there for them if they needed them. Clearly, this news won't do much to increase their confidence. Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano, who was only sworn into his role last month, released a statement saying that 'the financial status of the trust funds remains a top priority for the Trump Administration.' This seems like another instance of the Trump administration being all talk, little action, as there seems to be very little meaningful legislation to address the issue. In fact, Trump's 'Big, Beautiful' budget bill has very little in the way of relief for Social Security and Medicare. As a millennial with very little faith in America's ability to improve upon itself, I would very much like it if I could opt out of paying Social Security because while I'm not over 60, I have very little faith that the benefits are going to be there for me by the time I can use them. Heck, at the rate we're going, I'd honestly just be happy if we even have a functional democracy at that point. SEE ALSO: Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' Will Destroy Medicare, Food Stamps Student Loan Collections Make American Credit Scores Plummet SEE ALSO Social Security Projected To 'Go-Broke' Earlier Than Expected was originally published on Black America Web Featured Video CLOSE
