‘EPIC Option 2.0' seeks to eliminate Nebraska taxes on property, income, inheritances at 2026 ballot

Yahoo

03-07-2025

State Sen. Steve Erdman of Bayard leads a news conference at the Nebraska State Capitol on his EPIC Option tax proposals at the Nebraska State Capitol. May 21, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
LINCOLN — The petition campaign to eliminate Nebraska taxes on property, income, inheritances and corporations is returning for the 2026 election, hoping to capitalize on recent legislative failures and rising property valuations.
The 'EPIC Option' group is back with what supporters are calling 'EPIC Option 2.0' to ban state or local governments from collecting property, income and inheritance taxes after Jan. 1, 2028. Rather than proposing a broad consumption tax as replacement revenue, the Legislature would need to come up with a fix on its own.
'It's time for the people to be in control of this situation, and the only way we can do that is when the people vote,' former State Sen. Steve Erdman of Bayard, a spokesperson for the campaign, said this week.
The ballot measure would add to the Nebraska Constitution: 'No governmental entity in the state of Nebraska shall collect property tax, income tax or inheritance tax beginning January 1, 2028.'
Erdman said the EPIC team had been considering what to do after falling short of securing the necessary signatures to reach the ballot in 2024.
There were hopes the Legislature or Gov. Jim Pillen could do more than 'incremental changes' for property tax relief, said Erdman, who was term-limited in January after eight years. But he said the 2024 special session dedicated to property taxes retroactively raised taxes because of the so-called 'missing year' of income tax credits for property taxes paid. Then, lawmakers failed again in 2025. Erdman tried many times to legislatively pass the EPIC Option.
'Even when we try to do incremental changes, sometimes it winds up coming and biting us in the butt,' Erdman said.
State Sens. Bob Andersen of north-central Sarpy County and Kathleen Kauth of the Millard area are continuing work on their own constitutional amendment to tackle rising property taxes and valuations. Kauth's Legislative Resolution 12CA stalled in the Legislature's Revenue Committee this spring.
Erdman said he and others can't think of any other option than EPIC and that voters have reached a similar 'tipping point' as in 1966. That's when the Legislature sought to create and use state income and sales taxes to lower state property taxes. In response, voters in 1966 also successfully led a campaign to abolish state property taxes.
'I have spoken with people who circulated that petition in '66 and asked what their plan was to replace the revenue. And they said the outcry of how high taxes were, there was no plan,' Erdman said. 'They said, 'We are tired of paying these taxes.''
Sixty years later, the EPIC approach would be slightly different, providing approximately a one-year window for the state to find a solution if EPIC is advanced to and passed on the ballot.
The 2024 EPIC Option team faced resistance from a counter movement named 'No New Taxes Nebraska,' an organization that included former State Sens. Brett Lindstrom of Omaha and Dan Hughes of Venango, former colleagues of Erdman, as well as the League of Nebraska Municipalities, Nebraska Chamber of Commerce, Nebraska Hospital Association, Nebraska Realtors and Nebraska Health Care Association.
The EPIC Option ballot question committee has raised about $175,000 and spent $140,000 since 2023, according to filings with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission.
The No New Taxes group, formed in February 2024, raised and spent $58,165 last year. The group filed in February to dissolve its committee with the NADC.
Erdman said his group was continually 'chastised' for pushing a consumption tax plan, criticisms he says were incorrect, so advocates are now looking to force the Legislature to act.
'The revolt is becoming more sustained and longer and, right now, because the valuation hearings protests are going on at the local courthouse, these people are fired up,' Erdman said. 'And rightfully so, because this Legislature, nor any since 1967, has not had the intestinal fortitude to make changes to a broken system to make it fair for the taxpayer.'
The campaign would need valid signatures from 10% of Nebraska voters, including from 5% of voters in at least 38 of the state's 93 counties, by July 2026 to reach the November 2026 ballot.
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