Property Taxes and Community Political Structures

Abstract

Survey findings from three American communities on citizens' willingness to support public programs through local property tax increases are examined to shed further light on the contemporary "taxpayers' revolt." The analysis discovers that distinctly different dynamics characterize the politics of local property tax proposals. Discrete proposals generate different patterns of community cleavage, which may or may not preclude passage; however, a structural bias in favor of tax revolters is discovered in all three of the study sites.