Property tax reductions on Texas agenda

 KSAT:

It's one thing Texans don't love about Texas: the property taxes. Our property tax bills are the seventh highest in the nation. Some lawmakers claim they have a way to cut your property taxes almost in half.

Most of your property tax payment goes to pay for public schools. So, in order to drastically cut your bill, school funding would have to come from somewhere else.

One proposal would use state surplus to reduce property taxes over time. The other would expand the sales tax to replace school property tax.

Like many Texans Doug Brown is fed up with the rapid increase in property taxes. He lost his income last year, but the taxable value of his house jumped by ten thousand dollars.

“I think they're rising unfairly. At a percentage that we can't keep up with as income makers," Brown said.

One bill submitted for the special session would limit state spending and use the surplus to reduce the school portion of property taxes.

"Too many Texans are being forced out of their homes. We recently did a poll that said seventy-five percent of Texans say that their property tax burden is too high," says Vance Ginn, Chief Economist with the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Texas collects about 70 billion dollars in property taxes, and 43 percent of that is for school maintenance and operations costs.

Ginn testified in favor of another bill last session that would use an expanded sales tax to pay that portion. He claims the sales tax wouldn't have to go up, instead the state could increase the number of items that can be taxed.
...

Because the property taxes are rolled into mortgage payments, some do not notice how high they are.  I notice because I own my property free and clear.  Property taxes are the biggest cost of ownership on an annual basis.  Cutting them in half would be a good start.

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