Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley says property taxes will be on the to-tackle list when the new Iowa Legislature meets in 2025, because bills are too big and keep getting bigger.
It’s a near-perennial topic. Lawmakers agreed nearly unanimously on some property-tax restrictions in 2023 and fixed some mistakes in that law in 2024. State-by-state rankings of property tax burdens feature frequently in these arguments, as they show cities, counties and other entities in Iowa ranking poorly for what proportion of assessed values they collect compared with most other states.
“My bill went up” is the wrong frame, though, or at least an incomplete one. State law should not presume that residents who must pay more in taxes or rent are not getting value for their dollars. And state lawmakers should not intervene harshly on taxation if they aren’t willing to also help figure out how to provide services with fewer dollars. Property taxes are also intensely local and intricate, which means it’s a particularly inapt arena for top-down, one-size-fits-all rules. A Register examination showed significant variation in new bills sent out this summer despite large increases in assessed values statewide.