In governor’s race, Zach Lahn says Rob Sand wants to raise Iowans’ taxes by $7,500 a year. Does he?

Iowa’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn says his Democratic opponent, Rob Sand, wants Iowans to pay thousands of dollars more in taxes each year. 

“Rob Sand is an out of touch billionaire who wants to raise your taxes by $7,500 per year,” Lahn said in a campaign ad posted on the social platform X. 

In on-screen footnotes, Lahn’s ad cited Sand’s criticism of Iowa’s 2024 income tax cuts and the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act to support the $7,500 figure. 

The Lahn campaign did not respond to PolitiFact Iowa’s request for comment on the claim, so it’s not clear how it arrived at that number. 

Opposing already-enacted tax cuts is not necessarily the same as proposing to reverse them, although he has separately supported the increase of some sales taxes. PolitiFact Iowa examined Sand’s tax positions and found the math doesn’t support Lahn’s $7,500 figure. 

Sand says he would not reverse Iowa income tax cuts

Iowa lawmakers approved Senate File 2442 in 2024, accelerating previously approved income tax reductions and establishing a 3.8% flat individual income tax rate beginning in tax year 2025. 

As the bill was being debated, Sand questioned the state’s ability to balance its budget after the cuts. But his campaign told us he does not support repealing or reversing any of the state’s recently enacted individual income tax cuts. 

In October 2025, Sand argued that declining revenue, combined with continued spending, has created deficits requiring Iowa to draw from reserve funds to cover expenses. In September 2025, he called the situation a “fiscal time bomb,” while also saying some of the state’s recent tax reforms were necessary.

Sand has proposed increasing some sales taxes, including on cigarettes and tobacco to help curb addiction. He also supports funding Iowa’s Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation trust fund, known as IWILL. The voter-approved program was supposed to have been funded through a sales tax increase of three-eights of a cent per dollar. The effort was created but never funded. Projections released in 2013 estimated it would increase taxes by about $50 per family. 

Those are both modest tax increases, and the tobacco tax would apply only to Iowans who buy tobacco products. Neither of those proposals would come close to increasing an average Iowa household’s taxes by $7,500. 

Ernie Goss, an economics professor at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, said the $7,500 figure is implausible based on the scale of Iowa’s existing tax collections. 

Goss said a $7,500 increase across Iowa households would amount to billions of dollars in additional taxes and would represent a substantial increase compared with what the state already collects. 

Common Sense Institute’s analysis 

Research from Common Sense Institute Iowa, a conservative-leaning think tank that generally supports low taxes, also does not project $7,500 in annual savings from the 2024 income tax law. 

The institute estimated Senate File 2442 would save a typical Iowa household earning $75,000 approximately $410 in 2025, in addition to savings from earlier tax reforms. 

Ben Murrey, the institute’s director of policy and research, cautioned that the institute’s analysis covered the additional income tax changes enacted in 2024 but not all of Iowa’s income tax changes in recent years. The institute has not calculated the combined savings from all of those laws. 

Still, Murrey said it was difficult to see how earlier income tax cuts would close the gap between its estimate and Lahn’s figure. 

The institute also analyzed Iowa’s property tax changes. It estimated House File 718, signed into law in 2023, reduced the statewide tax burden by about $952 per household over its first six years. That’s a cumulative figure, not an annual savings of $952.

Federal tax policy

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent, and most Iowans would have seen a tax increase if it hadn’t passed. The nonpartisan Tax Foundation found that Iowans received about a $3,100 tax cut on average in 2026 because those measures were extended.

Sand’s campaign said that on balance, he believes the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is bad for Iowa, pointing to its effects on Medicaid and rural hospitals.

Regardless, Sand’s campaign said as governor, he would not have the authority to repeal federal tax provisions. 

Our ruling

Lahn said Sand “wants to raise your taxes by $7,500 per year.”

Sand has criticized both Iowa tax cuts and the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and he has explicitly supported raising sales taxes on items such as cigarettes. But despite his criticism of the Iowa tax cut, Sand’s campaign said he does not support reversing it. And if he were to become governor, Sand would not have the authority to repeal federal tax provisions.

The combined tax savings from the state and federal tax cuts Lahn’s ad pointed to came out to about $3,500 for an average household, not $7,500.

We rate Lahn’s statement False.