How Two Decades of Income Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Shifted the Load onto Property Owners and Renters
During the most recent reappraisal for property taxes, thousands of Cuyahoga County residents opened their mailboxes to find reappraisal notices that made their stomachs drop. Property values had climbed by an average of 32% county-wide, with East Cleveland residents facing increases of 67% and Maple Heights 59%.
Michael Chambers, Cuyahoga County Auditor, reported that, for 71-year-old Parma resident Agnes Gallo, this meant her home’s value rose by $76,000, pushing her annual tax bill up nearly $950. “This is outrageous,” she said. “People can’t afford to live in their own houses.” He also said that single mother Roni Menefee, facing a 49% valuation hike, admitted she was considering leaving Ohio altogether: “We’re hardly living in Beverly Hills here.”
County officials insist that House Bill 920 prevents taxes from rising dollar-for-dollar with property values. But for seniors on fixed incomes or working families barely hanging on, even modest increases can be destabilizing. More than 20,000 residents filed complaints, with thousands of adjustments granted. Still, the anger lingers—and justifiably so.
The Long-Term Tax Shift
That anger is rooted in two decades of deliberate state policy. Since 2005, Ohio’s Republican lawmakers have steadily cut the personal income tax, reducing rates most sharply at the top. Over time, these cuts drained nearly $13 billion annually from state revenues.
With less money flowing from the state to schools, libraries, and local governments, communities were forced to raise more themselves. And because they are prohibited from taxing investments or capital gains—the kinds of income more common among the wealthy—the primary tool left was the property tax (although many municipalities also increased their local income taxes-Cleveland voters narrowly approved an increase in its income tax from 2 percent to 2.5 percent in 2016).
The outcome: in 2024, Ohioans paid $23.9 billion in property taxes—more than they contributed through sales taxes ($13.7 billion) or income taxes ($9.5 billion). The most regressive form of taxation has become the backbone of public services.
Put plainly: the legislature cut income taxes for the wealthy, and forced everyone else—retired, middle-class, working-class, and poor—to make up the difference through higher property taxes.
The Nonprofit Inversion
At the same time, Ohio has allowed exemptions and abatements to balloon. Nearly $90 billion in property value—17% of the state’s total—is exempt from taxation, up from 14% two decades ago.
The largest single category? Abatements, totaling $26.6 billion. These were meant as temporary incentives to spur growth but are now permanent fixtures. Even utilities, which have captive consumers and guaranteed profits, receive abatements for investments they would make anyway.
And then there are the so-called nonprofits. Their tax-exempt status rests on public benefit, yet their leaders are not infrequently paid like corporate executives:
| Institution | Leader | Annual Compensation | Tax/Exemption Status |
| Cleveland Clinic | Dr. Tomislav Mihaljevic, CEO | ≈ $7 million (2023) | Vast campus tax-exempt as nonprofit hospital |
| Ohio State University | Ted Carter Jr., President | ≈ $1.3 million (2024) | University property tax-exempt |
| Ohio State University | Ryan Day, Head Football Coach | ≈ $10–12.5 million (contracted 2025) | Public university benefiting from exemptions |
| Hawken School (Private) | D. Scott Looney, Head of School | ≈ $1.05 million (2023, IRS Form 990) | Elite private school, property tax-exempt |
These institutions are sheltered from taxes while ordinary citizens—many of whom can barely make ends meet—are expected to pay “full freight.”
Renters Pay Too
The burden does not end with homeowners. Renters also pay indirectly, as landlords pass on property tax hikes through higher rents.
In 2023, Ohio saw some of the steepest rent increases in the nation:
Cincinnati: one-bedroom rents up 17% year-over-year.
Columbus: also up 17%.
Central Ohio: squeezed further by Intel, Amazon, and data center developments.
Statewide: over 700,000 renter households are “severely cost-burdened,” spending more than half their income on housing.
Even those who do not own property are being priced out of Ohio’s communities.
Populist Anger and the Ballot Box
It is no wonder, then, that frustration has spilled into politics. In 2025, an all-volunteer group began gathering signatures for a constitutional amendment to abolish property taxes entirely. Organizers say they are moving forward “no matter what” lawmakers do, because people feel they “no longer have a voice in this government.”
The proposal is extreme. Abolishing property taxes would blow a $23 billion hole in funding for schools, libraries, mental health services, and parks. Replacing it with sales taxes could require rates as high as 20%. Yet the fact that such a movement exists—and is gaining traction—reveals how deeply citizens feel abandoned.
They no longer trust lawmakers who, for twenty years, cut income taxes for the rich while pushing costs onto everyone else, especially the working class, seniors, and the poor. They see abatements handed to billion-dollar institutions and “nonprofits” with millionaire executives, while seniors in Parma and renters in Columbus face bills that are unsustainable.
The Choice Ahead
Ohio’s property tax crisis is not an accident. It is the inevitable result of two decades of choices:
Cut income taxes for the wealthy.
Hand abatements to billion-dollar institutions.
Shift the burden onto homeowners, renters, and the poor.
The result is predictable: the young leave by choice, the old leave by necessity, and those who remain are angry enough to contemplate abolishing the system entirely.
Eliminating property taxes outright is likely not the answer—it would devastate schools, libraries, and local services. But for many Ohioans, it may feel like the only way to force state leaders to listen. When lawmakers protect the powerful and ignore the cries of ordinary citizens, radical proposals become the only language that carries weight.[1]
And the cry is not simply to be heard. It is to be relieved—to be lifted out from under a system of taxation that has become oppressive, unfair, and in many instances, unsustainable. Until that relief is real and tangible, until fairness is restored, the ballot box will remain the people’s only instrument. And if the choice is between leaving their homes or leaving the system as it is, more and more Ohioans will choose to abandon the system itself.
The choice is no longer between reform or complacency. It is between reform or rupture.
[1] Some might dismiss the property tax abolition initiative as folly that would devastate local services. But terror concentrates the mind wonderfully. When gerrymandered legislative maps silence voters’ voices in normal governance, when the legislature attempts to eliminate or dilute ballot initiatives entirely, and when even successful citizen initiatives are ignored by lawmakers and courts, extreme measures become rational responses. The terror that grips policy makers, and concentrates their focus if voters eliminate $23 billion in local funding, might finally force the political class that has spent decades redistributing wealth upward to confront the unsustainable system they’ve created. Sometimes breaking a captured system is the only way to build a fair one.
Northcoast Antiquarian 