A California property is located in a Mello-Roos Community Facilities District. Which of the following best describes how a Mello-Roos special tax fundamentally differs from the Proposition 13 base property tax?
Correct Answer
B) A Mello-Roos special tax is levied to retire a specific bond and expires when that bond is paid off, while the Proposition 13 base tax continues indefinitely
Under the Mello-Roos Community Facilities Act of 1982 (Government Code §53311 et seq.), a Mello-Roos special tax is levied specifically to service bonds issued to finance public infrastructure. Because the tax is tied to a finite bond obligation, it expires once the bonds are fully retired — typically over a 20- to 40-year term. The Proposition 13 base tax (Revenue & Taxation Code §51), by contrast, is a permanent ad valorem tax capped at 1% of assessed value and continues indefinitely, increasing by up to 2% per year. This finite versus indefinite duration is the fundamental structural distinction between the two.
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