Property taxes inviting target

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The House Ways and Means Committee passed a bill last week that will be cheered on by homeowners who detest paying property taxes for such vital services as local schools, fire protection and law enforcement. The bill would cap the value of owner-occupied property until it is sold or there is a substantial improvement. Short of those dramatic changes, however, the value of a home will stay the same indefinitely on the tax rolls. And interestingly enough, the bill will cap property taxes at $1,500 for boats claimed as a primary or secondary residence.

This legislation is offered as a cooling salve for homeowners who break out in a rash after each mandatory reassessment. At those times when property values are adjusted to reflect the home's current market value, homeowners can find themselves paying more in property taxes. State lawmakers are constantly searching for ways to win favor with the property owners who scream the loudest after each reassessment.

Trouble is, there's no way to protect one group of people — people who have lived in their homes for decades — without penalizing another group — younger people who have just bought their first home, renters, business owners and the like. If lawmakers could face the truth, they would admit the Legislature adopted uniform reassessment rules about three decades ago to correct a blaring inequity.

Without periodic reassessment, one homeowner could be paying hundreds of dollars more for local services than someone who has lived in a similar house in the neighborhood for decades. This obviously isn't fair.

And there's another major problem: The state constitution requires uniformity in the taxation of property. An earlier legislative effort to allow counties to impose their own caps on property values was just ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court.

Legislators interested in avoiding another constitutional challenge should at the very least take the straightforward approach to this issue. They should allow voters to decide this matter in a constitutional referendum.

If there's a popular vote, some people who impulsively embrace this legislative gimmick might take time to question whether they really will "win" under a new system. The state Board of Economic Advisors said the bill would shift $76 million among the classes of property in the first year and $169 million among those classes by the fifth year of such a law.

The legal challenge to the previous law was brought by the city of North Charleston against Charleston County. North Charleston sued on grounds its residents, who lived in an area that did not have rapidly increasing property values, would be punished. Those residents would be subsidizing people with more expensive property in wealthier parts of the county.

The House should spike this bill. What it will do is drive up property taxes for some people while rewarding others more capable of paying their fair share for local services.