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President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda features an array of policies that would touch on everything from climate change to healthcare. One thing it wouldn’t do is establish a universal federal property tax. Nevertheless, social media users claimed there is a provision buried deep in the infrastructure bill that would do just that. This ‘infrastructure bill’ on page 2,385 presents a federal property tax of 3 percent on all homes and land - both residential and commercial, reads an image posted to Facebook. The image was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) PolitiFact spoke to three tax experts who have reviewed both the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Build Back Better Act. They were unanimous: Biden’s infrastructure agenda doesn’t contain a 3% property tax, or any federal property tax at all. This claim is not true, said Garrett Watson, a senior tax policy analyst at the Tax Foundation. The image cites page 2,385 of the infrastructure bill as evidence for its claims. However, page 2,385 of that bill would provide state funds to establish a ferry service for rural communities, not levy a property tax. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act doesn’t contain much in the way of tax changes, said Gordon Mermin, a principal research associate in the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. As evidence, he pointed to a bipartisan overview of tax provisions in the bill, none of which resemble a federal property tax. It’s possible that the claim refers to the Build Back Better Act , the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that would fight climate change and widen the social safety net, where Democrats have stuck most of their tax proposals. However, page 2,385 of the Build Back Better Act relates to drug pricing proposals, not a property tax. Finally, a federal property tax would be very difficult to pull off absent a constitutional amendment, said Erica York, an economist at the Tax Foundation. The U.S. Constitution requires that any direct federal tax be apportioned among the states . In other words, a tax would have to be the same amount per person in every state in order to be constitutional, which would be very hard to do with a property tax that is levied based on property values, said Watson. If (a federal property tax) is 3% of the value of land, it will never be the same per person in any two states, let alone all fifty, said Steven J. Willis, a tax law professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. According to the National Constitution Center, arguably the only way the federal government could levy a direct property tax would be to designate a fixed amount per person, since this tax would stay the same per capita in every state. The federal government has never imposed a tax of this kind before. Last year before the 2020 election, false claims about Biden imposing a 3% property tax spread widely despite the fact that nothing in his tax plan indicated this. Our ruling Facebook posts claim that the ‘infrastructure bill’ on page 2385 presents a federal property tax of 3% on all homes and land - both residential and commercial. Three tax policy experts who have extensively reviewed the Biden infrastructure agenda said the claim was inaccurate. Pages 2,385 in both the Build Back Better Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act don’t mention a federal property tax. A direct federal property tax as described in the post would be very difficult to make constitutional. We rate this claim Pants on Fire!
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