Johnson Unveils Property Tax Relief Plan
Sioux Falls, S.D. – Today, gubernatorial candidate and Congressman Dusty Johnson announced a comprehensive and responsible plan to deliver meaningful property tax relief to South Dakota homeowners beginning in 2027, making homeownership more affordable for seniors, hardworking families, and first-time homebuyers across the state.
“South Dakotans are getting squeezed by rising property taxes,” said Johnson. “My plan delivers for working families, seniors on a fixed income, and helps the next generation put down roots here in South Dakota. It keeps our state on solid financial footing, protects our law enforcement and public school funding, and provides real relief to every homeowner.”
Johnson’s fiscally responsible property tax relief plan includes the following:
- Annual $400 Property Tax Credit for Every Homeowner: Beginning in tax year 2027, every South Dakota homeowner would receive a $400 per-property tax credit, directly reducing their annual property tax bill. For a middle-class homeowner paying $2,000 per year in property taxes, the credit represents a 20% property tax cut.
- No Property Taxes for Two Years for First-Time Homebuyers: Young families are finding it increasingly difficult to buy their first home. Under Johnson’s plan, nearly all first-time homebuyers would receive a larger credit which would zero out property taxes for the first two years of homeownership.
“We don’t want the American dream to slip away,” Johnson continued. “We want young people to be able to afford that first home. My plan not only brings this dream closer for folks, it also provides immediate, broad-based relief to homeowners of all ages, without defunding schools, public safety, or infrastructure.”
Johnson’s plan is fully paid for by using funds from the sales tax change in current law, which comes into effect in 2027.
To learn more about Johnson’s property tax relief plan, please click here.
So to be clear, Dusty is proposing to let the sales tax increase from 4.2% back to 4.5% next year, and use that money to pay for his plan.
How was that not clear in the press release?
You win. You were rudest fastest.
awww did you get your feelings hurt when someone states the obvious and acts like it’s a bombshell? no wonder we can’t have nice things in south dakota.
…and mostest! LMAO do some more
Brilliant! Another policy from Dusty, more silence from Rhoden…
Rhoden released a property tax plan months ago and has been talking about it ever since: https://southdakotasearchlight.com/2025/03/31/governor-proposes-county-sales-tax-option-to-reduce-residential-property-taxes/
You can see plusses and minuses in each plan but it’s not like he doesn’t have one.
This is actually a pretty good plan.
DEAL. Let’s go Dusty!
So the farmers and ranchers taxes that fund 90% of the schools and counties budget get nothing? Sounds wrong!!
Maybe we should just go to an income tax then?
Do farmers and ranchers not live in houses?
I guess they can make it up on their income taxes and subsidized healthcare because they are poor on paper. Medicaid expansion was pushed by all farming organizations for a reason and that reason was their housewives need health insurance and they can qualify based on income even though they have millions in assets.
exactly. i saw it all the time when i worked in health insurance.
Considering they don’t pay fuel taxes, road use taxes, sales tax on farm use…i’d say cry a river, build a bridge, and get over it.
Farmers pay fuel tax on all over the road vehicles, plus road use tax (wheel tax) just like everyone else, even though they use their semis less than commercial operators. They also pay sales tax on all equipment and many farm goods (exemptions are feed, seed, chemical, and fertilizer inputs). A farmer pays more sales tax on a tractor or combine purchase than most do on their homeowner property taxes. Sales tax on a newer combine is $20,000-$40,000. Add that into their homeowner and agland property tax bill and I would say they are paying more than their fair share. $40,000-$1XX,XXX annual state and local tax bill for most farms.
Whoever wrote the 3:35 PM post should study the SD tax code.
No way on the 90 percent funding coming from farms and ranches. Provide your source.
Farmers and Ranchers, while own most property are also a business. I’d be fine them getting property tax relief for the property their house sits on just like every other South Dakotan would be entitled to.
They get plenty of relief.
The first part isn’t bad, though unless inflation adjusted I’m not sure if I would consider this lasting relief. Also I’m not sure mandated inflation adjusted property tax relief is a good idea either. The second part, though well intentioned, will likely lead to a good amount of 1st time homebuyers defaulting in year 3, or at least struggling to pay their bill when they’re hit with the taxes.
All this being said, session starts next week and I imagine we won’t be sitting here in March with same property tax landscape as today.
Why don’t you focus on getting obliterated in legislative races and talking shit about all of your friends? Seems to be your strong suit, policy analysis is not.
Completely unnecessary rude comment. Jake at least puts his name on what he puts out there. What part of his comment is wrong? $400 reprieve doesn’t last long if it’s not inflation adjusted, and yes, in year 3 it may be hard for some people to all of a sudden be hit with a property tax bill.
Are you okay?
It’s probably TIFFY TOBY or one of his ilk.
So $33.33 a month will be a deal breaker on whether my grandkids just starting out can buy a house?
There is a savings but not much as sales tax cost rise. Using a median household income of $60,000 and assuming 70% of that income was spent on taxable goods, calculated an annual sales tax of approximately $1,764 at the current state rate (this does not include local taxes)., would rise to $1.890, or $126.00.
But then comes the question, where does that missing $274.00 come from? Does it come from those who do not own property and rent, college students, seniors?
My guess it would increase the tax revenue in the state, by having property owners pay less, but those who for whatever reason are going tohave to pay more to make up the difference.
I d not feel that is tax reform, that is passing the buck to those who can not afford homes, because that $33.33 savings just went to $22.83 a month of that house payment. When paying a $1,000 plus rent for a small 2 bedroom appartment, it takes a few years to get to the down payment stage, all the while paying property taxes for a landlord in some case and a slumlord in a lot more cases.
The best way to reduce the taxes is to reduce the spending As property values went up county budgets increased beyond the rate of inflation. The State also saw increase of local values as a chance to reduce their share of the funding.
Let’s get rid of townships and combine counties as well as more school consolidation. The legislators need to do it now after kicking the can down the road for the last decade.
If you can not stand the heat get out of the office.
I always used to hear legislators say we can not do Anything this year because of too many new members and the next year say we can do anything now because I am up for election.
I think it’s a good idea 100% drop property taxes add an income tax and see how fast this state goes broke
If you give every homeowner a $400 tax break, it effectively allows most of the people in our little town to pay no taxes. I don’t really think that’s right. I think everybody should have some skin in the game.
Really? Where do you live? I’ll move there in a Herried escape property taxes.
Herried = heart beat
Don’t know how that happened!
Something is missing here.
Where is the Department of External Revenue aka Department of Unicorn Ranching Revenue?
What South Dakota really needs is increasing wages. More economic development creates more job creation and wage competition. Yes, industrial development, like data centers. Creates massive tax base that will create opportunities to lower property tax. Yes, a pipeline, that would create more demand for our corn raising the price!
But these kind of crazy capitalist ideas are not welcome in the new SDGOP. Oh no, not in my backyard.
The freedom caucus says they are not opposed to development but have you ever heard them give a suggestion of what?
State Income tax is long overdue. Otherwise it is basically robbing to pay Peter to pay Paul.
Like the fact he is coming with a plan. But a flat $400 isn’t enough. This plan isn’t enough to make most people happy.
Works for me.
Seems simple enough. The worst thing SD did was lowering the sales tax from 4.5 to 4.2. Makes no sense as it was already one of the lowest state’s in the nation and the .3 percent accounts for around $100 million dollars. Toby is saying Dusty wants to raise taxes to pay for this. The law sunsets in 2027……But then again, Toby has been on record saying he is gonna find 1.8 billion dollars in fraud and waste and do away with property taxes. I’m a realist and Dusty’s plan seems “more realer” and has an immediate effect.
I thought the .3 percent was gonna spur the economy? Looks like it had the opposite effect as revenues are in the gutter.
Much more realistic than Toby. I don’t mind the flat rate reduction. The first time homebuyers part seems a bit cheeky.
I like that Larry’s plan will give counties local control to adjust as needed. In theory, the counties with property values growing the fastest also have better economic environments and would benefit more with a shift to a sales tax. Those counties that “harvest external revenue” more than others would have a bigger share of property tax payed by out of staters.
I too wondered about the first time homebuyers clause but I think it would help defend the argument that this policy would do nothing for renters. It would be interesting to see how many renters would look at the possibility of homeownership if they knew they wouldn’t be paying property taxes for the first couple years. It seems to coincide and fit very well with the direction Trump is heading with lowering the mortgage interest rate and preventing corporations and “big money” folks from buying up single family homes.
I also think Larry’s plan holds some weight too as problems in Spearfish aren’t the same issues in Ipswich.
It seems Toby’s plan is a combination of the Abolish Property Tax groups (would be the largest tax hike in the history of SD) with the Muellers and “Doge”, which Elon publicly said if he had to do it all over again he wouldn’t have urged Trump to not go down the Doge route as it didn’t have the desired affect. I guess he is gonna find 1.8 billon dollars somewhere without raising taxes?
That leaves Hansen’s plan, which I’m not really sure what the plan is? Cut all government by 5% to provide property tax relief? From what I’ve seen he likes to talk a big story. His goal was to cut Owner Occupied Property Taxes by at least 50 percent. No way that is getting done this session. Kay from Piedmont who is on oxygen will once again be left with no options. He just loves telling that story about Kay from Piedmont on Oxygen. What strikes me with Jon is he complains about all the crony capitalism and corporate welfare that has been going on in Pierre. Hasn’t he been in the Legislature for 8-10 years and held some of the highest leadership positions? He has allowed everything he is complaining about to happen on his watch and now we are hearing about how that is the problem?
I thought you were going to say that he’s essentially a paid lobbyist that serves in the legislature.
I’m a renter. And two year relief on property taxes does not suddenly put housing in my reach. Although I don’t disagree with the idea in principle. I’m just saying it’s not a magic bullet.
Larry’s plan is terrible. It helps Minnehaha three times as much per capita as the counties around it, because that’s where the purchases are made.
It’s a huge shift of wealth to Sioux Falls. As if that’s needed.
A $300K home has about $5K in property taxes per year, where does this middle-class paying $2K per year come in at? You would be seeing about a $30 per month savings with that credit, I don’t see how that is what people are asking for. The locations that took advantage of the COVID spike caused this, even my home, they increased the value of it 60% over one year, I had to argue it in front of the commission, and they took it down slightly and reduced it by another 5%, but then the following year they had to drop it another 15% to match the market. The increase year over year is the problem, when arguing my case the amount of people that were much worse off than me were all denied and no change to their situation was made. How about just starting to cut services if revenue us down? For as much economic development activity we pay for, moving jobs or services from the government sector to the private sector should be easy. And sure, they will want to start with schools and parks, but eventually when they are all gone they will have to look at the only surviving service, the many many policing agencies. They will probably encourage more self funding with that though, so put your money in crypto and they won’t be able to steal it, have your car registered to a corporate entity so they can’t steal that, eventually, under God, the people may rule….
I think what Dusty is doing is great as little as it may seem. He is earmarking the .3 percent sales tax amount that will sunset in 2027 and GIVING IT BACK to overly taxed property owners before the career politicians like Jon Hansen can suck it back up into the State’s General Fund and use it on their pet projects (ESAs). We just need to vote out the AFP and Liberty Tree PAC legislators next voting cycle to make this happen. Well done Dusty.