If Ohio’s property taxes are eliminated, Gov. Mike DeWine says sales tax in the state could spike dramatically.

“We asked the tax department in Ohio to really do a study and take a look at this, and what would it take to replace that,” DeWine told reporters Tuesday. "Well, if you just did it with sales tax, the sales tax would go up to about 17 to 20%.”

“It would be devastating to Ohio families,” he added. 

Across the state, volunteer groups are collecting signatures to put a measure on the November ballot which would eliminate property taxes. The grassroots movement argues that property taxes have been raised too much too quickly, and people are being taxed out of homes even after they’ve paid off their mortgages. 

DeWine has consistently been an opponent of the movement, and pointed out Tuesday that the state legislature “has already taken some action” on property taxes, and “may take further action.” DeWine signed several bills aimed at property tax relief in December 2025. 

“One of the biggest complaints about property tax today is the fact that you were getting spikes that were going up dramatically, and so by the laws that were passed … that's going to even out, and I think people are going to see a significant amount of relief,” DeWine said. 

Beth Blackmarr, a volunteer with the Citizens For Property Tax Reform, dismissed DeWine’s comments on a 20% sales tax as a “failure of imagination.”

“There's 42 other states that do this differently and don't pay as much property tax as we do, and it's not because they don't have the same bills,” Blackmarr told 21 News. “They've got the same bills we do, but they weight it differently.”

Blackmarr suggested School District Income Tax, local income tax and direct billing of government services as alternatives to dramatically raising the sales tax. 

Based on Oct. 2025 data from the Ohio Department of Taxation, a 20% sales tax rate would be roughly triple the current state and local combined rates for Mahoning County (7.5%), Trumbull County (6.75%) and Columbiana County (7.25%). 

Such a dramatic increase in consumption tax could drive consumers in areas near the state border to do their shopping elsewhere, the governor said. 

“In Cincinnati, people will be going into Kentucky, or they're going to be going to Indiana. People in Toledo are going to be going into Michigan. People in the Mahoning Valley are going to go into Pennsylvania,” DeWine said. “Devastating impact on our businesses, on every single corner of the state.”

It would also shift the tax burden onto lower-income Ohioans, according to Miles Trinidad, a state analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, who explained that wealthier people spend a smaller proportion of their income on basic needs. 

“While property taxes may be somewhat regressive, they're not nearly as regressive as consumption taxes,” Trinidad said in a video interview. “So asking people to pay a 20% sales tax — which would be far and away the highest sales tax in the nation, it's kind of unimaginable to consider a state raising it that high — it would just disproportionately impact these people at the lower income levels.”

Trinidad went on to call the movement to eliminate property taxes “half-baked,” and said Ohio legislators should consider a “circuit breaker” policy to reform the tax. 

That kind of policy “would prevent a property tax overload, kind of like an electric circuit breaker, by crediting back property taxes that go beyond a certain share of somebody's income,” Trinidad said. “So, for example, if somebody's property taxes are over 3% of their income, anything over 3% would be removed from the tax.”

In order to make the November 2026 ballot, organizers must collect signatures from roughly 413,000 voters by July 1, though the groups are aiming for 600,000. 

Blackmarr would not provide 21 News with an estimate of how many signatures organizers have collected so far, but said they are “doing really well.” 

“I expect we will meet or exceed our goals,” Blackmarr said. “If we do not … we're going to continue to collect. We're not stopping because we don't make a goal on July 1.”