Keeping Taxpayers Top of Mind
By: Gov. Larry Rhoden
April 24, 2026
Every taxpayer dollar belongs to the people. It’s our job as elected leaders to spend the people’s money as efficiently as possible to keep South Dakota strong, safe, and free. In recent years, South Dakotans made one thing very clear that they wanted property tax cuts – and this session, we delivered the largest property tax cuts in South Dakota history.
Since session ended, though, there’s been a lot of misinformation about those property tax cuts. Recently, I celebrated Administrative Professionals Day by having some of my team over for breakfast. They answer countless phone calls, letters, and questions from South Dakotans. And they mentioned a recent uptick in questions about taxes. A lot of the calls were driven by misinformation that the Legislature raised sales taxes this session. So, I’m here to clear up the facts.
This session, most legislators agreed with me that South Dakotans deserve real, meaningful property tax relief. But there was a lot of division – about 50 different bills to address property taxes. So, we put the work in, and by the end of session we accomplished the largest property tax cut in South Dakota history. It wasn’t easy. It took grit, hard work, and good ‘ol fashioned negotiating. Here are the facts behind that tax cut:
Next year, the sales tax holiday is due to expire, meaning the state sales tax is set to go up by 0.3% next July. The Legislature tried to make that tax cut permanent and wasn’t successful, and some legislators were chomping at the bit to spend those new tax dollars. So instead, we redirected that into a statewide property tax cut for homeowners. And you’ll see that tax cut next year on taxes payable in 2027. That’s not a new sales tax increase – the tax was already going up, and we’re reinvesting it in a statewide property tax cut.
On top of that, we passed my bill to give the people in each county the option to cut property taxes further. Each county will have the option to replace some or all of their homeowner property taxes with a local half-cent sales tax. It’s not a mandate – it’s a choice. Local leaders and local voters will decide whether it’s the right opportunity for their community – and I’m a big fan of local control!
There was one other bill that promotes local control: HB 1245. I received countless messages of support on this bill from mayors, city councilors, and business leaders from all over the state. They wanted their communities to be able to avoid bonding for projects (and avoid future property tax increases) by instead passing a penny sales tax for up to five years – and only if 60% of the people in their community were supportive.
I was initially skeptical of this idea, but I studied the bill and all of its safeguards. I recognized that it could be a good tool to keep our communities Open for Opportunity. As Mayor TenHaken points out, if Sioux Falls had this local option years ago, the city could have saved over $50 million on the construction of the Denny Sanford Premier Center.
We do a lot of things right in South Dakota. We have the 2nd lowest taxes in America because we always keep taxpayers top of mind. So, if you’ve called our office or stopped in and asked questions, thank you. It is important for me to understand your concerns and your questions. I hope I have answered some of them for you.
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This is a losing issue for Rhoden. It has him on the back foot, and his response comes off as convoluted and defensive. It doesn’t even matter if he’s right, VOTERS DON’T LIKE IT and he doesn’t have the time or opportunity to convince them.
If you’re explaining, you’re losing.
Larry has the stench of Kristi Noem on him.
You cannot clean yourself from that stink.
Even if he could scrub her away, he still has
her little Circus Flea Ian Fury bringing the
smell right back.
Larry is toast.
He praised Kristi Noem and that is all you need to know.
Same Hat, Same Sh*t.
Guess we’ll see. Hope you don’t have voter’s regret. Who is your vote going to instead?
Defensive much?
Against DC Dusty? All day long.
I saw someone say in another comment thread that “people will love Larry’s property tax bill when they see the results in 2027.”
Maybe true. But when’s the election?
It is NOT going up by .3%! If it increased by .3%, it would be .03 X 4.2. It is increasing to 4.5%. Mathematicians, where are you?
4.5 – 4.2 = .3. The sales tax holiday will sunset and the it’ll go back to 4.5% which is .3%.
.03 = 3%.
The article states it increased .3%. It didn’t. A .3% increase is .03 * 4.2 = 1.6 cent increase. It’s actually a 1.4% increase.
Go read the law and do the math, not meth.
Dusty gave a brilliant explanation during the last debate of all the sales tax hikes + how the property tax “cut” is actually a tax shift. I’m sorry Larry and John, but just calling something a “cut” doesn’t make it true, no matter how many times you say it.
It’s a tax subsidy for property owners in urban areas paid for by local renters and rural shoppers.
Rents are not going to go down even if / when property tax goes down. If / when property tax goes down, landlords will make more profit and renters will pay the same rent, but they’ll have to pay higher sales tax, too.
Renters are going to get hit from both sides now.
since property taxes pay for the schools, shifting tax revenues from small communities to larger ones will accelerate the demise of small school districts
way to go
Landin Larry and Joker Jon passing the buck on the counties to decide. The only counties that will benefit are the largest counties in the state which also have tourists. Essentially in Minnehaha, the homeowner’s taxes are being subsidized by the renters.
It’s not a cut. It’s passing off responsibility and once again kicking the can down the road for a better, longer term solution.