ABSTRACT
The analysis in this chapter clearly indicates that local governments are increasingly relying on revenue produced by non-property kinds of taxes to partially fill the vacuum left by a decline in the growth rate in property tax yields. While there are differing explanations as to why local governments have reduced their dependency on the property tax, it is quite possible that it has something to do with the growing belief in many circles that the property tax is not viewed as either the best or the fairest way to finance the provision of local government services. For a number of years, there have been persistent complaints about property owners having to bear too much of the burden of financing local government programs and services. The fact that there was a very noticeable pattern whereby the property tax revenue proportion of total revenue, own-source revenue, and total tax revenue has been declining in the wake of the national tax revolt movement (became clearly evident with 1982 data) gives considerable credence to this explanation.
