The property tax accounts for more than a third of public school funding in the United States, and it is a much more stable source of revenue than income and sales taxes. However, it is constantly under attack, and often entangled in debates about educational equity.
In a new policy brief, Lincoln Institute Research Fellow Andrew Reschovsky explains the importance of the property tax and proposes ways to improve its performance, ease the burden on taxpayers, and reform state funding mechanisms to reduce disparities between school districts.
The policy brief builds on work over the past decade, including a chapter in A Good Tax by Senior Fellow Joan Youngman, a Land Lines magazine article on efforts to eliminate the school property tax in Pennsylvania, and the 2007 report, The Property Tax-School Funding Dilemma by Fellow Daphne Kenyon.