Jeff Boeyink, chief of staff to Gov. Terry Branstad, arrived at a commercial real estate forum today without notes. He didn’t need them. “I dream commercial property taxes,” he said.

That dream, reducing property taxes for business owners, could become a reality.

Iowa Senate President Mike Gronstal predicted that by the end of the current legislative session, a proposal passed last year in his chamber will be blended with plans offered by Branstad and House Republicans that could result in an overall 25 percent reduction in commercial property taxes.

For more than 30 years, lawmakers have retreated from the issue. That could change this legislative session, Boeyink and Gronstal said.

Boeyink, who was part of a panel that discussed the issue today at the Business Record’s Comercial Real Estate Trends and Issues Forum, spoke on behalf of Branstad, who says that changing the state’s commercial property tax law is crucial to economic development and job creation.

“For 34 years, the enemy of doing something has been people saying, ‘That’s not good enough.’ If we continue to say to each other, ‘that’s not good enough,’ then we’ll be in the same position year after year, Gronstal said.

A little bit at a time could be good enough this legislative session.

The three plans to revamp the tax system are vastly different in all but one area: All three would provide about $250 million a year to help communities recover funds that would be lost through a reduction in commercial property taxes.

At present, owners of commercial properties pay taxes based on the full assessed value of their property. Branstad has proposed taxing those properties on 60 percent of their valuation, with the reduction kicking in over eight years.

A bill that passed the Senate last year on a 46-4 vote would create a property tax credit for all commercial properties that would reduce taxes by 41 percent on properties valued up to $390,000. Any amount of valuation above that would be taxed at current rates.

Gronstal said the Senate plan would benefit small to medium-sized businesses the most.

Boeyink and Gronstal agreed that efforts to find the perfect solution to the property tax issue have been misguided. Gronstal likened the compromise that is being negotiated to efforts to eliminate the state’s inventory tax in the 1970s.

“In about 10 years, we were able to get rid of the inventory tax,” he said. The compromise on commercial property taxes is “a real step. Something that reduces by 25 percent is a pretty good step.”