WE the People — Louisiana is campaigning for a NO vote on Amendment 4, one of five constitutional amendments on the May 16, 2026 ballot. The amendment would authorize Louisiana's 64 parishes to eliminate the local property tax on business inventory, in exchange for a one-time state buyout ranging from $500,000 to $15 million per parish, paid from the state's Revenue Stabilization Fund. The campaign argues that the amendment is a cost shift rather than a tax cut — eliminating a revenue stream paid primarily by big-box retailers, auto dealerships, manufacturers, and distribution centers, and replacing it through some combination of homeowner property-tax increases, parish sales-tax increases, and service cuts that fall on homeowners, renters, schools, sheriffs, and parish infrastructure. The campaign calls the amendment "repackaged failure" because Louisiana voters rejected the same inventory-tax repeal mechanism 65% to 35% as part of the March 2025 omnibus Amendment 2; the Legislature stripped out the controversial elements and returned the inventory-tax piece as a standalone proposal on the May 2026 ballot.
"Amendment 4 is not a tax cut. It is a cost shift. The inventory tax does not cost Louisiana government anything — it is how government is funded. Eliminating it does not reduce what government costs; it changes who pays. The corporations that paid the tax yesterday stop paying it tomorrow. The homeowners, renters, and small businesses of the parish fill the hole through higher property taxes, higher sales taxes, or cut services. There is no mathematical scenario under which Louisiana households come out ahead."
"The state's one-time buyout is the structural fulcrum that makes this amendment work politically. A typical parish is offered $10 million up front in exchange for giving up $8 million per year in recurring revenue forever. In present-value terms, at a 5% discount rate, the parish is trading a $160 million asset for $10 million. No parish finance officer would recommend that trade if it were presented in those terms. The buyout is a bribe for giving up a permanent revenue stream, funded out of the state's rainy-day fund. Louisiana taxpayers pay for this amendment twice: once at the state level to fund the buyout, and again at the parish level to replace the lost revenue."
"Louisiana voters already said no to this policy. In March 2025, the same electorate rejected the same inventory-tax repeal mechanism by a 65-to-35 margin, as part of a broader omnibus. The Legislature's response was not to accept the defeat and propose something better. The Legislature's response was to strip out the most controversial pieces of the omnibus and send the inventory-tax provision back to voters as a standalone amendment with a different number. This is repackaging, not reform. Old wine. New bottles. Same bill — paid by you."
"LABI's own president publicly identified car dealerships as 'some of the biggest payers per capita of inventory tax.' That is the business lobby's top advocate, on the record, acknowledging that one of the largest beneficiaries of Amendment 4 will be car dealerships. When proponents describe this amendment as 'small-business relief,' they are describing a policy whose biggest beneficiaries are auto dealerships, big-box retailers, Amazon fulfillment operations, and petrochemical storage facilities. Main Street does not benefit here. Main Street pays."
"The five amendments on the May 16 ballot form a pattern. Amendment 1 is a power grab over the civil-service workforce. Amendment 2 is resource extraction from East Baton Rouge. Amendment 3 is fiscal illusion — a teacher raise funded by liquidation. Amendment 4 is tax shift — corporations stop paying, and homeowners make up the difference. Amendment 5 is entrenchment of incumbent judges. Each of these hands a short-term political win to a specific constituency at long-term cost to everyone else. Amendment 4 is where the tax-shift pattern is most visible — because the dollars actually change hands in a way the math can follow."
"The parish-by-parish transparency problem is itself an argument against this amendment. There is no publicly consolidated database showing what each of Louisiana's 64 parishes currently collects from the inventory tax. The state has never published one. Voters are being asked to authorize the elimination of a revenue stream whose total size has not been disclosed in aggregate. That is not an accident. It is a feature of how this amendment is being sold. If proponents had the number and the number were good for their case, they would be publishing it. They are not."
Available on short notice for interview on the following topics:
Contact: hello@wethepeoplelouisiana.com
Content licensed CC BY-NC 4.0. Journalists and commentators welcome to quote, paraphrase, adapt, and republish with attribution.