Do You Really Own Your Home? A Tax Revolt Says No.

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HARTVILLE, Ohio — A rebellion sweeping the nation gathered adherents in the parking lot outside northeast Ohio’s largest flea market on the Saturday before Memorial Day. Before making their way to stalls selling whirligigs, handmade soap, and peanut-butter Buckeye brownies, dozens of people stopped at folding tables where volunteers hawked petitions to abolish property taxes. Few needed much convincing before adding their names.

“I’m old. I’ve paid my home off,” said Ray Warner, a 72-year-old Akron resident wearing a Cleveland Browns coat to fend off the damp chill. “Why would I pay property tax?”

Across the country, homeowners are asking the same question. Fueled by the rising cost of homeownership — soaring home prices, mortgage rates and insurance bills — they are revolting against property taxes at a scale not seen in a half century. The 1970s property tax uprising that one journalist called a “Revolt of the Haves” reshaped American politics. The depth and breadth of today’s proposals threaten to do so once again.

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