Nebraskans launch effort to outlaw property, income taxes via 2026 ballot measure

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Nebraska voters could have the chance to outlaw property, income and inheritance taxes under a proposed constitutional amendment that organizers are aiming to get onto the state's midterm ballot in 2026.

Advocates behind the "EPIC Option" -- the acronymic nickname for the group seeking to eliminate property, inheritance and individual and corporate income taxes -- announced Thursday they would try again to reshape Nebraska's tax system through a vote of the people next year.

"In 1966, the people of Nebraska changed the tax code through a successful ballot initiative," the group said in a news release. "We're ready to do it again in 2026."

Led by landowners who have long been fed up with the state's mounting collective property tax bill, which has increased by more than $2 billion over the past 11 years, the group tried and failed last year to get a pair of proposals on the 2024 ballot that would have replaced property, income and inheritance taxes with a single consumption tax.

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This time, the group is circulating just one petition that would change Nebraska's constitution to prevent any governmental entity in the state from collecting property, income or inheritance taxes, leaving lawmakers to figure out how to replace the lost revenue.

"The EPIC Option 2.0 ballot initiative will provide the state Legislature with a variety of options, including sales taxes, excise taxes and consumption taxes," the group said in Thursday's news release, naming what amounts to three different forms of sales taxes.

When they pushed for the change last year, organizers claimed a 7.5% consumption tax applied to all new services and goods -- including new homes -- would sufficiently fund state government, schools and local governments.

But a bipartisan coalition of more than 40 Nebraska businesses and organizations that opposed the EPIC Option argued the state's consumption tax rate would have to be 22% to make the proposal workable, a rate they said would "decimate our economy."

Republican Gov. Jim Pillen, who angered some of those same business groups as he has targeted sales tax exemptions in search of property tax relief last year, also pledged to work "day and night" to defeat the EPIC proposal had it qualified for November's ballot.

Organizers fell short of collecting the 123,000 signatures they needed from registered Nebraska voters to crack last year's ballot, equal to 10% of registered voters.

The group will need more than 125,000 Nebraskans, including at least 5% of voters in 38 of the state's 93 counties, to get their proposal on the 2026 ballot.

Every successful petition or referendum effort for the past decade has spent $1.5 million or more on gathering signatures and campaigning, but EPIC last year ran out of money to keep paying a Florida company it had hired for paid signature gathering, dooming the campaign.

The group's financial footing hasn't changed much since. The campaign had $34,137 on hand at the end of June, according to the group's latest financial disclosure filing.

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Reach the writer at 402-473-7223 or awegley@journalstar.com. On Twitter @andrewwegley

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