CHEYENNE — As lawmakers fine-tune the property tax legislation left on the table, the conversation over who receives relief and how it is calculated continues.

One proposal would offer property tax relief based on household income, in an expansion of a program started in 2023. Another would place a 5% cap on property valuation increases. A third would offer an exemption for long-term homeowners, but how that exemption would be applied — based on a dollar amount or as a percentage — remains undecided.

Some include a “backfill,” or mechanism for making up lost revenue to fund agencies across the state that rely on mill levies from property taxes. Others do not.

Some are very similar. Others are not.

“I would say that House Bill 52 is really identical to (Senate File 54),” House Revenue Committee Chairman Rep. Steve Harshman (R-Casper) said Thursday as the committee took up two Senate files on the topic. House Bill 52, “Property tax-homestead exemption,” implements an exemption for real property used as a primary residence up to the first $100,000 of fair market value. Senate File 54, “Homeowner tax exemption,” establishes a homeowner property tax exemption not to exceed $200,000 of the fair market value of the property.

“I don’t know what horse will break a leg and not meet the finish line. But I would just tell the people that there are multiple horses in this race still. And there are going to be several of them that finish,” Harshman said.

Early this week, the Senate passed SF 54 with a provision that it would apply to all residences, eliminating property taxes for homes valued at $200,000 and lower. But during the House Revenue Committee meeting Thursday morning, Rep. Ember Oakley (R-Riverton) pointed out that that exemption would cost the state more than $300 million and proposed an amendment to bring the exemption down to $100,000 of assessed valuation.

“I would like to get a feel for reducing the exemption. It seems like we have gotten fairly casual about doing a pretty high exemption,” Oakley said. “What I would do is make a motion to lower the exemption.”

That motion passed, but Rep. Liz Storer (D-Jackson) proposed that instead of looking at a dollar amount, the calculations for exemptions be made based on 25% of the valuation of a home. She pointed out that an exemption for $100,000 of assessed value may not affect those whose property taxes have increased the most.

The total estimated residential property taxes collected in Wyoming in 2020 was around $410 million. That rose to $643 million in 2023, Storer told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on Thursday. 

The amount collected in Teton and Lincoln counties has doubled, she said.

“We just are dealing with these really high values, and essentially you bought a house 30 years ago for $150,000, now it is worth $2 million because the land values have gone up so much,” Storer said. “So a $100,000 exemption, for them, might mean $600 off their property tax, but if their tax is $10,000, it is not very meaningful.”

Most money for the refund program, she said, also came out of Teton and Lincoln counties.

“The 25% is more equitable,” Storer said, adding that she favored a one-year reduction at that rate.

A motion to further amend SF 54 to include a 25% calculation passed in committee, but Storer said a similar amendment on a previous House bill was not approved.

“It is interesting, because I’ve made this same argument on the floor of the House, and it didn’t go well,” Storer said. “But now people are understanding a little better.”

The House Revenue Committee did not vote on SF 54  Thursday morning, as Harshman has routinely told the committee that he’d like to keep all options on the table before sending bills back to the floor. All changes will have to be agreed upon on both sides of the capitol, with changes to Senate files subject to concurrence votes by the Senate.

Also on Thursday, the Senate Revenue Committee began discussing several House bills. At one point, Chairman Sen. Bo Biteman (R-Ranchester) asked Wyoming Department of Revenue Director Brenda Henson what would happen if multiple bills survive the session.

“I received a question earlier today about the possibility of lumping all these together versus making people pick one,” Biteman said.

“We have got a suite of these property tax (bills) coming through, and they are all kind of flying together, targeting different people. Is it possible for the department to tell people, you pick the $200,000 exemption, if that one passed, and/or that (other one)?” he asked. “If all these were to pass, do they all apply? Would it be doable for you to implement some sort of a ‘pick one’?”

Henson joked that her heart started palpitating thinking that all remaining legislation would pass. More seriously, she said that it would not be a good idea to create a situation wherein the taxpayer must choose.

“That means that you have to communicate with over 240,000 taxpayers out there, and that is just not a possibility,” she said.

If, for example, a bill like HB 45 passes, that exemption would only apply to a residential structure or residential land if the value goes up more than 5% from the prior tax year.

If the valuation did not go up that much, that bill would not apply to that particular property owner.

“We are going to have numerous properties, probably the majority of properties, that aren’t going to see a benefit from that,” Henson said, adding that the counties would run the numbers to apply exemptions under HB 45.

Other bills have different effective dates, she said, and some have sunset dates within several years.

“As you can tell, we have really given a lot of thought to this,” Henson said. “If we are confused a little bit, put yourselves in the shoes of the taxpayer.”