County commissioners across southwest Ohio have been handed a tax break they can choose to give — and a bill they would have to absorb to give it. A provision in Ohio’s recently passed state budget empowers county commissioners to double certain property tax exemptions for homeowners using local dollars, and none of the region’s counties has acted on it yet, the Dayton Daily News reported.
The authority covers two existing breaks: the Homestead exemption for eligible homeowners and the state’s 2.5 percent owner-occupancy credit. Doubling them locally would put real money back in homeowners’ pockets, but the cost would land on the schools, counties, cities, villages and townships that share the property tax base, according to the Daily News.
The scale in southwest Ohio is significant. Collectively, five counties — Butler, Greene, Miami, Montgomery and Warren — could provide $40.4 million in additional Homestead exemptions and $33.6 million for the owner-occupancy tax credit, according to calculations by the Dayton Daily News using information obtained from county auditors…