S102 would let municipalities that didn’t have an operating millage (a local property-tax rate for general operations) as of January 1, 2025—or those that incorporate after that date—begin to impose one. The amount they could raise would be capped: The millage could generate up to one-third of what the municipality’s general fund cost in the previous year (or for new ones, one-third of what their proposed budget calls for).
The South Carolina State Senate passed S102 on May 1, 2025 by a vote of 37 to 2. We have assigned pluses to the nays because property taxes, like income taxes, are an immoral and unconstitutional form of government-imposed theft. True ownership cannot exist if citizens must continually pay the state for the right to keep their own land—failing to do so results in government seizure, proving that the state, not the individual, is the ultimate owner. This violates the very principle of private property, which is essential to self-government and liberty. The Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment safeguard property rights by forbidding any state from depriving a person of property without due process of law. Rather than creating new avenues to tax citizens, lawmakers should protect property rights and seek to abolish all forms of taxation that threaten individual sovereignty.
