Look What You Made Me Sue: Rhode Island Homeowners Fight Back Against the “Taylor Swift Tax” 

Rhode Island lawmakers thought they had found the perfect taxpayers to target: owners of high-value second homes, including nonresidents who cannot vote them out of office. Now, those homeowners are taking the state to court. 

More than 40 property owners have filed a lawsuit challenging Rhode Island’s new “Taylor Swift Tax,” arguing that the selective property tax violates both the U.S. and Rhode Island constitutions. 

The lawsuit, Adams v. Rhode Island, was filed August 19 in Newport County Superior Court. The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare the tax unconstitutional, block its enforcement, and refund taxpayers who have already paid it. 

The “Taylor Swift Tax,” which took effect July 1, imposes an additional $5 tax for every $1,000 of assessed value above $1 million on qualifying non-owner-occupied residential properties. The bill comes on top of the property taxes owners already pay to their cities and towns. 

Despite its celebrity nickname, the tax reaches far beyond Taylor Swift and her famous Watch Hill estate. State officials identified 8,245 properties as non-owner occupied and potentially subject to the tax. By targeting second-home owners, lawmakers are gambling with a highly mobile group of taxpayers who can choose to take their investment elsewhere. 

Now, some of those taxpayers are fighting back. 

At the center of the lawsuit is an argument familiar to Americans since the founding: no taxation without representation. 

The complaint alleges that the tax “disproportionately and deliberately” targets nonresidents who own property in Rhode Island but cannot vote there. The plaintiffs argue the tax violates several federal constitutional protections, including the Dormant Commerce Clause, Privileges and Immunities Clause, Takings Clause, and Equal Protection Clause, along with similar provisions of the Rhode Island Constitution. 

Perhaps most revealing is what lawmakers themselves said while considering the tax. 

The complaint points to legislative debate in which a sponsor acknowledged that affected nonresidents “can’t vote” against the lawmakers imposing the tax. 

That gets to the heart of the problem. Instead of pursuing broad-based tax policy, Rhode Island Democrats found a narrow group of property owners who could be charged more while posing little political risk to the legislators voting for it. The inability of many affected taxpayers to vote in Rhode Island was not merely an unintended feature of the policy. According to the complaint, lawmakers were well aware of it. 

State lawmakers have argued that non-owner-occupied properties can place additional demands on municipal services, remain vacant or unmaintained, and contribute to the state’s housing problems. 

The homeowners dispute that rationale. Their lawsuit argues that second-home owners already pay substantial local property taxes while consuming fewer municipal services than full-time residents. It also argues that discouraging ownership of million-dollar second homes does little to increase Rhode Island’s supply of affordable housing. 

There is another disconnect. The revenue does not go to the municipalities supposedly burdened by these properties. Instead, roughly $25 million in projected annual revenue is earmarked for Rhode Island’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Fund. 

The lawsuit calls the policy a “selective tax-grab.” 

The constitutional questions will ultimately be decided in court. The underlying tax policy, however, is already misguided. Rather than restraining spending or pursuing policies that make Rhode Island more competitive, lawmakers chose to extract more revenue from a politically convenient group of taxpayers. 

Second-home owners are a highly mobile tax base. They can decide where to purchase property, invest their money, and spend significant portions of the year. Rhode Island competes with other states for those taxpayers and the economic activity they bring with them. 

Yet Rhode Island lawmakers chose to make the state more expensive for them while betting they would simply absorb another tax bill. 

Some are now making clear they will not. 

Rhode Island lawmakers wanted an easy tax target. Instead, they got a lawsuit.