If Louisiana's homestead exemption had kept up with inflation, property owners with homes up to around $300,000 wouldn't pay taxes on them.
The current homestead exemption of $75,000 was set in 1980. St. Tammany Parish assessor Louis Fitzmorris says it used to be that people owed almost no property tax.
"Back in the day, it was most people, the vast majority, were fully homestead exempted," Fitzmorris said.
He told WWL's Newell Normand that his own first home, purchased in Abita Springs for $48,000 in the early 1990s, has ballooned in value.
"That same house sold in 2022 for $200,000," said Fitzmorris.
Fitzmorris called it a "stealth tax increase" on homeowners.
State lawmakers last spring considered a proposal that would have allowed parish governments to increase the homestead exemption, but it failed on the house floor.
