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Big E
Mar 9
Big E’s Big Mouth Substack

Idaho Legislature – VOTE NO on H0842 - Taxing districts, budget limits (Posted: 03/09/26)

Summary (ai assisted)

This bill intent is clear: To raise Idahoans’ property taxes!

Below is slightly edited from H0842 Statement of Purpose (SOP) & Fiscal Note

H0842 addresses the limitations placed on growth of property taxes imposed by H0389 (2021). SOP claims these constraints have prevented cities, fire protection districts, and ambulance service districts in fast-growing communities from being able to keeping up with public safety service demands of growing populations.

SOP states this bill:

  1. Increases cap on overall property tax growth for cities under 30,000 people, as well as for fire protection districts and ambulance service districts serving these smaller cities, from 8% to 15%, if enough new construction and annexed territory has been added to cover cost of these extra property taxes.

  2. Increases amount of foregone property tax revenue that can be added to ongoing property tax budget above these caps, to 2%, replacing current 1% limit.

  3. Adds new construction and annexations to property tax budgets based on prior year’s levy rate, rather than estimated current year levy rate.

  4. Prohibits accumulation of future additional foregone property tax balances. Foregone property tax balances from prior to 2026 may continue to be retained and used in the future, subject to statutory limitations.

  5. Allows city and county voters to use existing local initiative process to reduce city or county property tax budgets, using same threshold for passage currently provided for voters to increase property taxes beyond statutory limits (2/3rds vote for counties, and 3/5ths vote for cities).

Fiscal Note:

  • No impact to revenues or expenditures of any state fund.

  • Claims few of Idaho’s smaller communities are growing fast enough to use the increase in property tax growth cap; for those that are, annexation and new construction values expected to cover these extra property taxes, resulting in no shift to existing homeowners.

  • Increasing amount of foregone property taxes that can be added to budgets each year from 1% to 2% would allow such costs to be added to property taxes faster than they would be under current law.

  • Preventing future accumulations of foregone property taxes will allow property tax savings generated by a fiscally conservative governing board to be locked in in perpetuity.

  • Potential property tax budget reductions enacted through city and county initiatives process cannot be prognosticated.

Reason for Recommendation to VOTE NO

“You'll own nothing and you'll be happy.” – World Economic Forum (WEF)

H0842 is a very technical bill, but the bottom line is that it allows easier implementation of property tax increases. Claims that these increases won’t affect many cities are dubious and expectations of fiscally conservative governing boards are unrealistic.

Our Idaho property taxes are high enough, thank you very much. We hear over and over again this complaint:

“Our property taxes are too high! Lower them!”

We say to scale back expectations and limit services to what property owners can afford, which is much less than the increases in this bill.

Don’t turn Idaho into a high property tax state. Enough Idahoans are losing their homes already with property taxes as high as they are. Property tax increases reduce the ability of people to own or keep their homes, turning them into renters (or homeless).

Do we really want to live in a state that supports WEF’s 2030 mantra: “You'll own nothing and you'll be happy.”

Please VOTE NO!

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