Tax revolt

A tax revolt is a political struggle to repeal, limit, or roll back a government-imposed tax.

In the United States, it is often used to refer to a series of anti-tax state initiative campaigns, which have been particularly popular in the West. The first of these was California's Proposition 13, sponsored by Howard Jarvis and passed overwhelmingly by voters in 1978, which drastically limited property tax levels in the state.

In subsequent years, the state initiative process, initially championed by Populists and progressives, has been increasingly used for such purposes by conservative and libertarian political forces. Notable examples include a series of initiatives in Oregon (see Oregon tax revolt) and Washington (see Tim Eyman), and the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) in Colorado.

Critics charge that these initiatives have wrecked havoc on state governments and have been partly responsible for recent fiscal crises in many states; some have argued those consequences were intended -- that the actual motivation behind slashing taxes is to "starve the beast".