A Tale of Two Tax Jurisdictions:

Abstract

ABSTRACT California's Proposition 13 and Massachusetts’Proposition 2½ attempted to shrink state and local tax burdens by reducing property taxes and limiting future tax growth. Both initially succeeded. However, following a brief lag, those governments made up lost revenues primarily through increased non‐tax fees and charges; within a decade, real per capita revenues and expenditures exceeded their pre‐tax revolt peaks. This development is consistent with the hypothesis that voter‐initiated limits on a subset of revenue sources, intended to reduce state and local tax burdens, succeed temporarily but are then undermined by expansions in other revenue sources.