How a city
pays for itself.
Different taxes. Shared needs.
Choices with consequences.
Portland doesn’t have a general sales tax. Other cities do. Follow the money, compare nine systems, and see what happens when a major source of funding disappears.
Try the tradeoff Compare the citiesShares of local tax revenue · 2023
City + allocated county, school & district finances
Lincoln Institute FiSC · methodology ↓
A tax is a source. A service is a choice.
Money often flows into a shared budget before it reaches a service. Some taxes have legally dedicated uses. Select a lever to see the distinction.
Personal income
Taxable household income, with brackets, deductions and exemptions
State general funds; some local taxes fund dedicated programs
In Portland’s system
Oregon income taxes support the state budget. Metro SHS and Multnomah Preschool for All support their named programs; Portland administers them but does not receive them as unrestricted city revenue.
The tradeoff
Thresholds can concentrate a tax on higher incomes. Removing a dedicated income tax creates a gap in that program unless another source replaces it or spending changes.
Connections show funding relationships, not measured dollar flows or exclusive assignments. Fees are included as an alternative revenue lever; they are not all taxes.
The constraints are real.
They aren’t all the same.
A missing tax, a legal limit and an earmark each change the choices available.
Measure 5 limits taxes against market value
Eligible education taxes are limited to $5 per $1,000 of real market value; general-government taxes to $10. Taxes above those limits are compressed, starting with local options. Voter-approved capital-construction bond levies are excluded.
Measure 50 limits assessed-value growth
Maximum assessed value normally grows no more than 3% a year, with exceptions such as new construction or property changes. Taxable assessed value is the lower of maximum assessed value and real market value. The tax bill itself can rise by more than 3%.
No general sales tax is a policy choice, not a blanket ban
Oregon has no general retail sales tax. The League of Oregon Cities identifies a local general sales tax as an available revenue tool, with political and administrative barriers. Oregon cities already use targeted taxes, including Ashland's prepared-food tax.
Revenue sources are not all interchangeable
A city's general fund can support many services. Dedicated taxes, utility charges and some grants have narrower uses. A replacement must reach the government and program losing money, and must be legally available for that purpose.
Look at the whole local system.
A school district may levy the tax in one city; a combined city–county government may collect it in another. These revenue comparisons account for those overlapping governments.
Of every $100 in local taxes
2023 collections · includes business and visitor payments
What if the sales-tax money disappeared?
Start with a published city budget. Keep other revenue and planned spending unchanged. Remove sales and use tax receipts, then decide how to close the new gap.
Three documented cases, including Oklahoma City. The nine-city revenue comparison uses a different scope.
City General Fund · operating portion
70.5% of this fund’s baseline
With no replacement revenue, spending would have to fall by $450.6m to preserve the original balance.
What this money supports
This operating fund supports police, fire, parks and other city departments. Dedicated public-safety sales taxes sit outside this example.
What a replacement would require
Oklahoma cities cannot use property taxes for day-to-day operations under current law. The City’s property-tax levy pays capital-bond debt. A property-tax replacement here would require a change in authority.
Includes General Fund sales and use taxes. Excludes the separate public-safety, zoo and MAPS sales-tax allocations; abolishing those too would create additional losses.
What the experiment assumes
Lost revenue = the published sales-and-use budget line × the removal percentage. Replacement = lost revenue × the replacement share. Spending reduction = the remainder. This is an annual, static accounting exercise—not a forecast of how a tax repeal changes shopping, employment, migration, taxable income or collections.
“New revenue” could mean income or business taxes, another levy, fees or ongoing aid. These are funding targets, not calculated tax rates or promises that a city can adopt them. Reserves can temporarily bridge a gap; borrowing and selling assets do not supply a permanent recurring replacement. Existing deficits, surpluses, reserve use and all other budget assumptions are held unchanged. A 50% revenue removal is not a prediction that halving a tax rate halves receipts.
“Lower income taxes” starts a conversation.
What replaces the money? completes it.
Holding services and costs constant, less revenue from one source means more from another. Oregon’s income taxes, local property taxes and program-specific levies carry different responsibilities. A sales tax could broaden the mix; it would also shift who pays. Lower spending is another choice. The useful debate makes that choice explicit.
Sources, scope & reproducibility.
Revenue data: fiscal 2023. Rate rules: checked October 27, 2026. Budget experiments: each named adopted or final budget. Those dates describe different evidence; they are not interchangeable.
Why these cities?
Nine illustrative city systems, with populations of roughly 423,000–979,000 in the source year. Seattle, Denver, Minneapolis, Austin and San Francisco provide different regional tax systems; Nashville, Oklahoma City and Louisville broaden the Southern and central-US comparison. They are not a statistically matched control group.
FiSC adds each municipality to allocated shares of overlapping counties, schools and special districts. Consolidated boundaries, service responsibilities, prices, visitors and tax bases still differ. Higher revenue is not itself evidence of better services or higher household burden.
What the bars count
Local tax revenue only, with all tax categories retained. Income combines personal and corporate collections. “Other” combines selective sales, license, transfer and miscellaneous taxes. State and federal taxes are excluded. Aid appears only in the selected city’s general-revenue context.
Per-resident amounts are nominal 2023 dollars following the workbook’s CPI conversion. Its About sheet retains an inconsistent “2022” label; 2023 rows have CPI factor 1. Utility-enterprise revenues are excluded. Source rounding can cause tiny differences in totals.
Download all rate rules, budget inputs, formulas and source links (JSON)