Blog - Local Property Taxes

Learn from Prop 13 History to Avoid Repeating Past Mistakes

February 26, 2025 • By Rita Jefferson

Worries about housing costs and property tax bills are leading people to check the history books for solutions, but there’s a danger that they’ll repeat past mistakes. If anti-tax lawmakers carelessly weaken property taxes as they did in the 1970s, as they did with California’s Proposition 13, they will undercut public finances, making municipalities, school districts, and other special districts worse off.

Policymakers Unwisely Propose Cutting Property Taxes in Favor of Sales Taxes

January 14, 2025 • By Rita Jefferson

Lawmakers across the country are taking aim at property taxes with a new strategy: raising sales taxes instead. Doing so would create a regressive tax shift that puts unfair burdens on renters and reduces the strength of local government revenues.

On Election Day, Voters Across the Country Chose to Invest in Their States & Communities

November 19, 2024 • By Kamolika Das

On election day, voters across the country — in states red and blue and communities rural and urban — approved a wide range of state and local ballot measures on taxation and public investment. The success of these measures clearly shows that voters are willing to invest in public priorities that feel tangible and close to home.

2024 Local Tax Ballot Measures: Voters in Dozens of Communities Will Shape Local Policy

October 17, 2024 • By Rita Jefferson

Next month, voters across the country will weigh in on many local ballot measures that will have a profound effect on the adequacy of our local tax systems and whether cities and communities can fund public needs. These are in addition to statewide ballot questions, many of which have local implications this year.  

Local Tax Trends in 2024

August 14, 2024 • By Kamolika Das

Many cities, counties, and townships across the country are in a difficult, or at least unstable, budgetary position. Localities are responding to these financial pressures in a variety of ways with some charging ahead with enacting innovative reforms like short-term rental and vacancy taxes, and others setting up local tax commissions to study the problem.

Tax History Matters: A Q&A with Professor Andrew Kahrl, Author of ‘The Black Tax’

April 24, 2024 • By Brakeyshia Samms

In his new book, The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America, Professor Andrew Kahrl walks readers through the history of the property tax system and its structural defects that have led to widespread discrimination against Black Americans.

Ahead of the ‘Bring Chicago Home’ Vote, Remember That Local Mansion Taxes are Tried and Tested

March 14, 2024 • By Andrew Boardman, Kamolika Das

As Chicago and other localities look for ways to shore up resources for critical public investments, it's important to remember that over a dozen cities and counties have already benefited from policies like mansion taxes.

Worthwhile Ideas for a Stronger and Fairer D.C. Tax Code

January 17, 2024 • By Andrew Boardman, Kamolika Das, Marco Guzman

The nation’s capital has a once-in-a-decade opportunity to advance a stronger and fairer local tax code. New draft recommendations from a key advisory panel will help leaders make the most of the moment.

2023’s State and Local Tax Ballot Measures: Voters to Weigh in on Property Taxes, Wealth Taxes, and More

October 24, 2023 • By Jon Whiten

Even in this slow year for candidate elections, the decisions that voters in states and cities make could strengthen or weaken revenue for needs in their communities and could change how taxes are distributed across the income spectrum. In the places where tax fairness is on the ballot, much is at stake.

States are Talking About the Wrong Kind of Property Tax Cuts

May 11, 2023 • By Brakeyshia Samms, Carl Davis

Concerns over property tax affordability have been at the forefront this year as housing prices have climbed and property tax bills have often increased along with them. As lawmakers mull a range of property tax cuts, circuit breakers are the best possible approach—and these policies are receiving far too little attention in the states.

Why Local Governments Need an Anti-Racist Approach to Property Assessments

August 5, 2021 • By Ambika Sinha

Property taxes are among the oldest and most relied upon form of local taxes. Revenue raised from these taxes funds education, firefighting, law enforcement, street and infrastructure maintenance, and other essential services. Though all members of the community enjoy these public goods, homeowners of color, especially Black families, pay more as a share of home value in property taxes than their white counterparts. 

Gentrification and the Property Tax: How Circuit Breakers Can Help

April 27, 2021 • By David Crawford

Property tax circuit breakers are effective because they provide property tax relief to families whose property taxes surpass a certain percentage of their income. If a family in a gentrifying area sees their property tax bill (or their rent) surge to an unaffordable level, a circuit breaker credit kicks in to offer relief. This targeted approach assists low- and middle-income families without significantly reducing overall tax revenue.

One Tax System for Most Americans, and a Second System for the Wealthiest

August 16, 2019 • By Matthew Gardner

Last year, the Walton family's fortune grew by $100 million a day. This level of wealth is particularly obscene in the context of the Walmart Corporation’s dark store strategy. The company works nationwide to reduce its property tax assessments, which, when successful, deprives local communities of revenue necessary to fund education, libraries, parks, public health and other services.

Housing for All? Developers Bulldoze Taxpayers in Affordable Housing Debate

December 4, 2018 • By Monica Miller

Affordable housing advocates across the nation are attempting to address the problem at the local level, but they often face political and community opposition. These challenges are currently playing out in Baltimore, which is turning into a case study in how the best-planned civic interventions run into tough road blocks when it comes to tax increases versus moneyed special interest who seek to block those tax increases.