In the Beginning, there was Proposition 13.

On June 6th, 1978, nearly two-thirds of California's voters passed Proposition 13, reducing property tax rates on homes, businesses, and farms by about 57%. Now, according to the newly amended state constitution property tax rates could not exceed 1 percent of the property's market value and valuations couldn't grow by more than 2% per annum unless the property was sold.  Read more >>

Text of Proposition 13 as originally presented to the voters (June 1978)  Read more >>

Introduction

California continues to face one of the most serious crises in the state's public finance history, and proposals are likely to surface in the Legislature or via the initiative process that would overhaul the way taxes are imposed on individuals, businesses and property owners, both residential and commercial. This research bulletin, the first in an occasional Cal-Tax series on public finance issues, examines California's property tax system. It highlights the strengths of acquisition-value assessments and projects the ramifications of possible changes to the system established by Proposition 13.  Read more >>

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