The House just voted 60-8 in favor of HB 421a, the bill to increase the homeowner’s exemption from property tax. The bill now goes to the governor. It raises the exemption’s top amount from $50,000 to $75,000, adds in the value of land as well as improvements, and indexes the top amount to housing price inflation in future years.

“This is certainly the people’s bill,” sponsor Rep. Dennis Lake, R-Blackfoot, told the House. “I don’t think there’s a person out there that doesn’t understand what this bill is about.”

The exemption hasn’t been adjusted for inflation since voters enacted it by initiative in 1982. Lake said that’s caused a subtle shift over the years that left homeowners bearing more and more of the state’s property tax burden. “This bill shifts that back – not in its entirety, in part,” Lake said. “This is good legislation.”

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