Budget & Tax

As property taxes soar, experts urge Oklahoma to adopt ‘Truth in Taxation’

October 19, 2026

Ray Carter

As property valuations have soared in recent years, so has the amount Oklahoma homeowners must pay in property taxes, causing property tax payments to grow far faster than income for most citizens.

At a recent legislative study, officials urged state lawmakers to address that problem by instituting a “Truth in Taxation” law that has significantly reduced property taxes in Utah.

“Oklahomans deserve a property tax system that is transparent, predictable, and accountable to the taxpayers who fund it,” said John Tidwell, Oklahoma state director of Americans for Prosperity. “The Truth in Taxation interim study is an important opportunity to examine reforms that ensure taxpayers have a clear understanding of when and why their property taxes increase and give them a stronger voice in those decisions. These reforms aren’t about preventing local governments from funding essential services. They’re about making sure tax increases happen in the open, with meaningful public input and accountability. Truth in Taxation is a commonsense step toward restoring trust and putting taxpayers back at the center of the process.”

Under the proposal, property tax rates would be set to achieve a specific amount of local revenue.

That alone can lead to lower property tax rates.

For example, if a county determines it needs $1 million annually in property tax collections to fund local government services, the tax rate declines as property tax values increase while still generating $1 million per year, officials noted.

For example, if a 1-percent rate produced $1 million, and property values subsequently increased by 20 percent, a property-tax rate of 0.83 percent would produce $1 million the next year.

If government officials believe more tax revenue is needed, they must publicly vote to increase the rate after providing public notice and opportunity for citizen input. In Utah, mailers must be sent to all local homeowners and property owners, notifying them of the pending public vote to increase their tax rates.

The reform effectively requires taxing authorities to make a case to the voters for any projects that may require increased property tax payments.

Doug Kellogg, state projects director for Americans for Tax Reform, noted property values have shot up more than 50 percent since 2020, far outpacing the cumulative inflation of 30 percent during that time. That means homeowners are paying more in taxes based on paper increases in the value of their home that have not been realized through any actual sale.

The proposed reform does not cap property tax rates but does require greater transparency.

“There’s not a hard limit where taxpayers have to vote,” said Matthew Putnam, policy manager with the National Taxpayers Union. “There’s just officials telling their constituents why they need these dollars. And if they can’t prove that, they shouldn’t have those increases.”

“Adding this transparency on the local level is a big deal when we think about rightsizing all of government to the benefit of the state and taxpayers in the long term,” said Elizabeth Patton, Kansas state director for Americans for Prosperity.

A “Truth in Taxation” law has been in place in Utah since the 1980s, and Kansas officials enacted a similar law in recent years.

From 1994 to 2025, property tax rates in Utah declined by 42.7 percent while still providing sufficient revenue for government, as determined by local citizens.

“Their rates have gone down even though we’ve seen revenue go up,” Kellogg said. “And of course, Utah homes, like other states’ homes, have gone up quite a bit in market value. And they have one of the lowest effective property tax burdens in the country.”

Putnam noted that Utah’s property tax rank fell from 25th-highest nationally to having the third-lowest property tax rates in the nation.

“That’s been a continuous decline over the last 40, 50 years, and they are consistently among the lowest property taxes in the nation,” Putnam said. “And even comparing to other states of similar population sizes, they are substantially lower. They’re either half or a third of the revenue, because they’ve been able to keep that runaway increase from occurring.”

The early results from Kansas are also encouraging.

“What we have seen in Kansas with our results is six counties where property tax for local operations has declined over the last three years,” Patton said. “And we see 21 counties that average less than 2 percent a year. Forty-eight of our counties have held revenues constant, which is very exciting. And 270 cities have held tax revenues constant.”

“It’s very good to see over half of Kansas taxing authorities voting against taxes, tax hikes, after they passed their strong truth-in-taxation law,” Kellogg said.

While some officials have called for freezing property tax rates or assessments, the “Truth in Taxation” reform still allows increases to occur, but it forces local government officials to openly advocate for those increases and vote on them publicly, rather than allowing local government to grow as the result of automatic tax increases generated by higher assessments on homeowners.

The fact that property tax growth has slowed in states that adopt “Truth in Taxation” reforms shows that taxing authorities have not been able to make the case for government growth to their constituents, not that voters will never support funding specific government services, Kellogg noted.

“You see that accountability mechanism working,” Kellogg said. “That’s just: ‘You guys have to take a public vote; your voters are going to be aware of it.’ And it immediately starts leading to tax increases being rejected.”