Wealth taxes are pitched at billionaires. Iowa farmland is where they’d end up
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Iowa lawmakers made property taxes the defining issue of their 2026 session, and the overhaul Gov. Kim Reynolds signed in May limits how much more counties and cities can collect just because property values rise. Washington is heading the other direction, with proposals that would bill families every year on what their land is worth, whether or not it ever turns into income. On Nov. 3, Iowans filled an open U.S. Senate seat and we have four new members heading to the U.S. House, and every elected owes farm families a straight answer on whether they would vote for one.
My family has farmed in Marshall County for five generations, and we raise hogs, cattle, and row crops. Iowa farmland has gained more than 50 percent in value since 2020, yet farm income is headed the other way. It is projected to fall nearly a quarter this year as crop prices stay low and costs keep rising. In a year like this, a farm's balance sheet can look stronger than ever while its checking account shrinks, and several bills in Congress would tax the balance sheet. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna want a 5 percent net-worth tax each year. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has her own version. Sen. Ron Wyden would tax the annual rise in an asset's value, even if it's never sold.
Taken together, several lawmakers want to create, in effect, a federal property tax. Their sponsors say only the very wealthiest would pay, and under the bills as written, they're right. A farm like mine is nowhere close. But history says a tax like this doesn't stay with the wealthy for long, and the safer course is not to create one at all. Farmers have seen that kind of promise broken before. When Congress wrote the estate tax, it was meant for large fortunes. Lawmakers set the exemption at $60,000 in 1942 and left it there for nearly 35 years. As land values rose, more farm families owed it, and in 1976 Kansas Sen. Bob Dole warned that family farms were being sold every year to pay the tax. No one ever voted to tax ordinary farms, but that is where the tax ended up. Retirees have seen the same thing.
In 1983, Congress began taxing Social Security benefits only above $25,000 in income, or $32,000 for couples, and never adjusted those lines for inflation. Today about half of beneficiaries pay it. Iowa would feel this more than most states because two-thirds of our farmland belongs to people 65 or older, and 84 percent has no debt. A tax on net worth counts what you own minus what you owe, so debt-free land counts at full value. Owners 65 and older rent out most of the state's cash-rented ground, so a yearly federal bill on the land's value would come out of the rent, or out of the land. Washington is also running deficits near $2 trillion. The very richest are the people best able to move assets, restructure, or leave. When a tax meant for the wealthiest few falls short, Congress looks for where the money is, and in rural Iowa, that's farmland.
As a member of the Iowa Farm Bureau's young farmer board, I know finding land is the hardest part of starting out. Investors already buy nearly 30 percent of the Iowa farmland that goes up for sale. Every acre a family sells to pay a federal tax bill is one more acre a beginning farmer has to outbid them for. Iowa has been moving in the opposite direction.
Besides this year's property tax law, the state ended its inheritance tax in 2025 and cut income taxes. Washington already taxes Iowans when we earn money and when we sell something, which is when we have the cash to pay. Iowa's members of Congress should reject these taxes outright, and tell Iowans plainly whether they would support a federal tax on what families own or on gains no one has cashed in. Members already in office can start now by putting their opposition in writing and keeping these misguided taxes out of any year-end tax or spending deal.
Four generations of my family have made a living in Marshall County. I want the next one to have that chance too, without a yearly federal bill on land we never plan to sell.
Blake Edler is a fifth-generation farmer in Marshall County, where he raises hogs, cattle, and row crops. He serves on the Iowa Farm Bureau Young Farmer Advisory Committee, the Farm Bureau Marshall County Board, and as Marshall County Pork Producers Policy Chair.