🥧 Ellie, Tom, and the Picnic Plans: A Tale of Two Tax Futures

🏛️ SEAL SD Compares the Plans for YOU!

Ellie and Tom were neighbors in Rapid City, each owning a $300,000 home and dreading the $4,500 property tax bill that hit every year. It felt like a big bully demanding their picnic lunch money, threatening to take their homes if they couldn’t pay. But change was brewing in South Dakota, and two plans emerged to tackle this burden.

Ellie’s Picnic with the Core GRT Plan
Ellie joined SEAL SD’s Core GRT Plan, which turned South Dakota into one big freedom picnic. Instead of paying a picnic spot fee (property taxes), the picnic bakers (businesses) chipped in a small 5% slice of their pie sales (gross receipts), raising $3.6 billion to fund the whole picnic—tables (roads), guards (police), rules (courts), schools ($960 million), and more. Ellie’s $4,500 fee vanished, saving her enough to buy a new oven for her baking hobby. She got a $200 picnic coupon (rebate) just for showing up, and when she bought a $40 pie, she paid only $1 extra (GRT pass-through) instead of $2.60 (old sales tax). The picnic guards got $215 million, with $31 million for Rapid City, and there was a $95.8 million leftover pie to keep things safe in tough times. With exemptions for churches, military families, and small businesses, the picnic felt fair. If the picnic planners (county officials) wasted money, Ellie could picnic in another county, forcing them to fix their mess. The Core GRT Plan was like a shield wall, protecting Ellie’s home and giving her power over the picnic!

Tom’s Picnic with the Competing Plan
Tom chose the competing plan from abolishpropertytaxessd.com, which swapped his $4,500 picnic spot fee for a new fee of $1.50 per $100 of his home’s value—still $4,500, just renamed. At $1.25, it’d be $3,750, saving him $750, but the plan wasn’t clear. We tried to learn more on their website, but it wasn’t working as of April 26, 2025, leaving folks like Tom with more questions than answers. The new fee raised $1.6 billion to replace the old spot fee, but Tom still had to pay the picnic food tax (sales tax) of $2.60 on his $40 pie, plus all the other picnic fees (other taxes) totaling $2.7 billion more. There were no picnic coupons (rebates), no extra pie (surplus), and no exemptions—not even for churches or veterans. If the planners wasted money, Tom had no leverage; they’d just raise his food tax or other fees, and he’d still risk losing his home if he couldn’t pay. The competing plan felt like a wobbly picnic table—one leg fixed, but the rest shaky, with extra fees piling up and no clear plan in sight, leaving Tom uneasy.

The Picnic Verdict
Ellie’s picnic was a feast of freedom—she saved more, kept her home, and held the planners accountable with her picnic choices. Tom’s picnic was a half-baked pie, with extra fees, no exemptions, and a lack of clarity that left him worried. The Core GRT Plan turned South Dakota into a picnic where everyone thrived, proving the people—not the planners—should hold the power!

🚀 What is GRT: See the Grt-Story right here 🚀