If taxes are the price of civilization, how little of civilization do we want? It seems that North Dakota stands on the edge of the cave when it comes to funding the activities that make us a civilization.

Taxes – not civilization – have become the focus of North Dakota policy making. Every session the legislature throws several proposals in the air without thought or research. It has become a game of hunches.

Former State Senator Jim Maxson of Minot recently asked in PrairieAction ND just a few of the questions that ought to take the air out of proposals to eliminate property taxes.

The primary source of income for local government is real estate taxes, Maxson points out, and “if real estate property taxes are eliminated, local government services will not be eliminated. Inflation will not magically disappear.”

“Predictably,” he notes, “there will be necessary increases in building maintenance, water treatment, landfill replacement, road and bridge maintenance and labor.”

And he asks a very pertinent question: if the state legislature appropriates the replacement, local government funding will be frozen for the duration and local governments will become political footballs in the legislature every two years.

Periodic pay increases for local employees will depend on legislative action, which we know to be unreliable. With the legislature exercising biennial control over local financing it will mean that the legislature will become the ultimate governing body for counties, cities, townships and other property taxing governments.

Maxson also brings up the subject of out-of-state owners of real estate in North Dakota. There are thousands of nonresidents paying taxes that must be replaced if the property tax is removed.

When I was state tax commissioner, I had a bulldog on the staff who was obsessed by the out-of-state landowners who weren’t paying taxes. He sent out 15,000 letters to lists of such owners he found in county courthouses so we know there are a lot of them.

For the out-of-state property owners, abolition of the property taxes would be a windfall and the legislature would have to find additional funds to cover this loss of out-of-state taxpayers.

I would be the first to concede that administration of the real estate taxes needs constant refinement but it has been improved significantly over the past 50 years.

The personal property tax, the worst of the lot, has been abolished. The tax on farmland has been cut in half. Counties now have professional directors of tax equalization so local assessing is much more accurate.

But it is necessary to keep in mind that the heart of the property tax is “ad valorem” – by market value. And as land becomes more valuable, the market moves up and administrators must continually reappraise the properties in their jurisdictions to keep them ad valorem.

One measure of our civilization is the amount of revenue and flexibility left in the jurisdiction of services that contribute to the well being of local governments where the rubber meets the road.

State control of local revenue will not improve our civilization.