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State/Local Property Tax Revenue Rises Past $210 Billion in the Fourth Quarter
March 26, 2026 | By Jesse Wade
Property tax revenue collected by state and local governments rose for the ninth consecutive quarter according to the Census Bureau's quarterly summary of state and local tax revenue. Total tax revenue for state and local governments increased 2.1% over the quarter, with individual income tax revenue up 1.4%, sales tax revenue up 2.5%, and corporate income tax revenue up 8.3%. Property tax revenue rose the least amount over the quarter, up 1.0%. For 2025, state and local tax collections totaled $2.2 trillion, with property taxes accounting for $826.8 billion (37.5%).
Property tax revenue collected was $210.7 billion in the fourth quarter, an increase from a revised $208.5 billion estimate in the third quarter. These collections were 4.8% from one year ago. The share of property tax revenue as a share of total revenue was 37.3% in the fourth quarter. This share has been relatively stagnant at 37% over the past three years.
See graph here: https://i0.wp.com/eyeonhousing.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/QoQ-scaled.jpg
Property taxes typically make up the largest share of the total tax revenue for state and local governments, with most property tax collected by local governments. The second highest revenue generator was sales tax at 27.6%, totaling $155.7 billion, followed closely by individual income tax at 27.0% ($152.5 billion). Corporate income tax rounded out the remaining 8.4% at $45.8 billion.
See graph here: https://i0.wp.com/eyeonhousing.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Sharestime-scaled.jpg
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Federal Improper Payments Total $186 Billion in FY 2025
May 20, 2026 | Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
OTHER SPENDING
The federal government made at least $186 billion of improper payments in Fiscal Year (FY) 2025, according to new Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates, with over half made through health care programs. Estimated improper payments rose 15% ($24 billion) from FY 2024 and have totaled around $3 trillion since 2003.1 Policymakers should work to reduce these improper payments as part of a strategy to improve government efficiency, lower deficits, and reduce government waste, fraud, abuse, and errors.
See graph here:
https://www.crfb.org/sites/default/files/styles/media_image_default/public/images/Reported%20Improper%20Payments.jpg.webp
Improper payments are payments that should not have been made, were made in incorrect amounts, or failed to comply with recording or other applicable requirements. Improper payments may be the result of fraud, insufficient documentation, or error on the part of the government or the recipient. GAO’s improper payment estimates focus on 64 programs from 15 agencies, encompassing roughly three-quarters – $4.5 trillion – of total non-interest spending.2 The estimates are compiled from agency-reported data on PaymentAccuracy.gov as well as agency financial reports, and improper payment rates are calculated by dividing estimated improper payments by total program outlays.
Roughly four-fifths of all improper payments in FY 2025 – about $153 billion – were overpayments. The remainder consisted of underpayments ($10 billion), unknown payments ($14 billion), and technically improper payments ($8 billion), where the recipient received the correct amount but the process failed to comply with statutory or regulatory requirements.
More than half of the total amount of improper payments comes from health care programs, including $57 billion (31%) from Medicare and $37 billion (20%) from Medicaid. Another 15% comes from refundable tax credits, including the Earned Income Tax Credit ($21 billion), the refundable portion of the Child Tax Credit ($5 billion), and the American Opportunity Tax Credit ($2 billion). And despite six years having passed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, at least 5% of improper payments were related to COVID relief programs, most notably $10 billion from the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant Program, which supported live venues, theaters, and cultural institutions.
Please go to Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget to continue reading.
Improper payments are payments that should not have been made, were made in incorrect amounts, or failed to comply with recording or other applicable requirements. Improper payments may be the result of fraud, insufficient documentation, or error on the part of the government or the recipient. GAO’s improper payment estimates focus on 64 programs from 15 agencies, encompassing roughly three-quarters – $4.5 trillion – of total non-interest spending.2 The estimates are compiled from agency-reported data on PaymentAccuracy.gov as well as agency financial reports, and improper payment rates are calculated by dividing estimated improper payments by total program outlays.
Roughly four-fifths of all improper payments in FY 2025 – about $153 billion – were overpayments. The remainder consisted of underpayments ($10 billion), unknown payments ($14 billion), and technically improper payments ($8 billion), where the recipient received the correct amount but the process failed to comply with statutory or regulatory requirements.
More than half of the total amount of improper payments comes from health care programs, including $57 billion (31%) from Medicare and $37 billion (20%) from Medicaid. Another 15% comes from refundable tax credits, including the Earned Income Tax Credit ($21 billion), the refundable portion of the Child Tax Credit ($5 billion), and the American Opportunity Tax Credit ($2 billion). And despite six years having passed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, at least 5% of improper payments were related to COVID relief programs, most notably $10 billion from the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant Program, which supported live venues, theaters, and cultural institutions.
Please go to Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget to continue reading.
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U.S. Fraud Exceeds Property Tax Revenue
FULL FREIGHT
July 13, 2026 | by Real Estate Mindset
There are three ways to deal with a tax bill in America, and only one of them is available to the person reading this. You can pay it in full, which is what a homeowner does, on time, every year, backed by a lien that can take the house. You can get it forgiven, which is what a large corporation does when a county or a development agency abates its property tax to lure a plant or a warehouse or a data center. Or you can simply take the money and vanish into the enormous, tolerated hum of American fraud, which drains the system from every direction at once and is pursued, when it is pursued at all, with a fraction of the vigor aimed at the family that misses a payment.
This report sets the homeowner's bill against the other two. In 2025 state and local governments collected $826.8 billion in property tax, almost all of it local, most of it funding schools. Against that single, lien enforced number stand two others that rarely appear on any ballot: the property tax quietly forgiven to corporations, and the staggering sum lost every year to fraud in every sector of the economy, including inside the state and local governments that send out the bills. Count them honestly, discount them in daylight, and the documented fraud plus the corporate giveaways already match the entire property tax levy, dollar for dollar, before the single largest category of fraud is counted at all. Count that too, and the total runs close to three times what the homeowner pays.
Details on the scale of the fraud set out in this discussion:
U.S. Fraud Exceeds Property Tax Revenue
FULL FREIGHT
July 13, 2026 | by Real Estate Mindset
There are three ways to deal with a tax bill in America, and only one of them is available to the person reading this. You can pay it in full, which is what a homeowner does, on time, every year, backed by a lien that can take the house. You can get it forgiven, which is what a large corporation does when a county or a development agency abates its property tax to lure a plant or a warehouse or a data center. Or you can simply take the money and vanish into the enormous, tolerated hum of American fraud, which drains the system from every direction at once and is pursued, when it is pursued at all, with a fraction of the vigor aimed at the family that misses a payment.
This report sets the homeowner's bill against the other two. In 2025 state and local governments collected $826.8 billion in property tax, almost all of it local, most of it funding schools. Against that single, lien enforced number stand two others that rarely appear on any ballot: the property tax quietly forgiven to corporations, and the staggering sum lost every year to fraud in every sector of the economy, including inside the state and local governments that send out the bills. Count them honestly, discount them in daylight, and the documented fraud plus the corporate giveaways already match the entire property tax levy, dollar for dollar, before the single largest category of fraud is counted at all. Count that too, and the total runs close to three times what the homeowner pays.
Details on the scale of the fraud set out in this discussion:
Editor's note: Mockingbird Properties is a Dallas-based real estate investment firm specializing in commercial, multi-family, residential, and mixed-use developments. Its /dcad section operates as an activist platform led by principal Mitch Vexler, dedicated to exposing and challenging alleged systemic fraud in Texas property tax valuations, appraisal district practices (particularly DCAD), and related school bond financing. Mockingbird Properties aggregates extensive legal filings, criminal complaints, Supreme Court petitions, letters to federal agencies, presentations, and advocacy materials urging investigations, prosecutions, and the repeal of property taxes in favor of a uniform sales tax.
Don't propose the elimination of property taxes. Based on the level of property tax fraud just do it:
Does the DOJ have the resources, competency and ability to take on this level of fraud?
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