Property taxes: A symposium on its history and prospects for improved administration, relief, and reform

Property taxes remain the predominant source of local tax revenue despite the tax revolt centered around California’s Proposition 13. They remain the overwhelming source of revenue for local schools in the nation despite findings in several states that the system of school finance violates state or U.S. Constitutions. They remain locally administered despite continual evidence of massive disparities in the tax paid by similar properties. Governments apparently cannot survive without the property tax. But how can governments accept the property tax as it exists? The articles in this symposium address various problems and issues associated with this local revenue source.