I can't imagine the outrage when the average deadbeat in Houston who is not a homeowner, suddenly sees their $10.00 item go from $10.83 to $15.00. Their $1000 iPhone go from $1083 to $1500. They'll scream that it's not fair that the taxes have shifted to them and only the homeowners get a break.

Never stopping to think that they've been freeloading off the homeowners the entire time, and this is just leveling the playing field.

Sid Farkas said:

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AJ02 said:

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Obviously the difference would have to be made up elsewhere. Where would that be?

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Tariffs? Let foreigners foot the bill for our (very limited) government.

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How long are we going to pretending this is a thing?

Where does money be made up for tax shot falls......call the Biden's and Hussein and use the money they got back from their buddies

ETFan said:

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Sid Farkas said:

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AJ02 said:

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Obviously the difference would have to be made up elsewhere. Where would that be?

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Tariffs? Let foreigners foot the bill for our (very limited) government.

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How long are we going to pretending this is a thing?

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So at work today, had a meeting with one of our suppliers in China. The topic of tariffs came up, of course. And basically, they're so desperate to keep our business that they were willing to lower costs for us. Significantly.

eric76 said:

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Kenneth_2003 said:

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You cannot support rural counties or even rural urban transition counties on sales tax.

There isn't enough population to support the businesses necessary to find the local services.

Example... Every ranch has one or more side by sides on the property... Bought in another, urban, county and bright in. I used to live in a mixed urban rural county North of Corpus.
As one of the largest counties in the region, we got a good deal of business in from smaller neighboring counties. Even still everyone frequently had to go to corpus or San Antonio for larger purchases.

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In my area, just about anything you might need except for food or farm supplies, you have to go well outside of the county.

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Yup! Even with the AG expectations and taxing the every living hell out of the ones in town, or Sheriff deputies made less than urban teachers! I about fell out of my boots when I learned in 2021, a good friend of mine WITH OT cleared $48k a year before taxes!

In Bee county I owned a 1200 SQ ft 3/2 on a7000 SQ ft lot and paid a little over$3000 in taxes. I moved to Harris county (spring with Klein schools) and bought a 3300 sqft home on a 10,000 sqft lot and pay a little over $4300. More than double the house, and taxes went up 30%

Oh look… the actual correct answer.

What is it about real estate that short circuits peoples brains?

Some Florida numbers for comparison, I wish I had time to dig in to some Texas numbers. 25% to 50% depending on the county.

One of the poorest counties with a 23% below poverty rate is Putnam county. 50% of its budget consist of property taxes with additional 11% coming from the states. Medium household income is 48k. pic.twitter.com/89q72WZQfV

— Scott84HendersonFL1776 (@SangerEatbabies) February 16, 2025

Still studying property taxes.
Working with the insane numbers from my county.
Broward's 2025 Budget is almost $8 Billion.
$1.7 Billion came from property taxes.
Eliminating property taxes would return us to 2021 Budget levels.
Counties made a fortune on property value increases. pic.twitter.com/teIvvgFKGt

— Frog Capital (@FrogNews) February 16, 2025

I suspect other counties are financially similar, and this is why the Gov thinks we can eliminate property taxes.
These local clowns tax us on property value, which has doubled in 7 years.
But the damn rate stays the same, and your commission thinks they are fiscally responsible. pic.twitter.com/rd6OvEo8De

— Frog Capital (@FrogNews) February 16, 2025

It says Hawaii currently has the lowest property tax rates in the country. Given the very expensive housing costs there, seems like they're missing out on a LOT of tax revenue that way. So I'm guess they make up for it by higher hotel & resort taxes on travelers?

Colorado is third lowest, and I don't think they're struggling to bring in tax revenue. So I'm guessing they make up for it with income taxes.

But are there any states known for very low property taxes who opt to make up that revenue solely with consumption/sales taxes? I'm too lazy to do the research.

AJ02 said:

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It says Hawaii currently has the lowest property tax rates in the country. Given the very expensive housing costs there, seems like they're missing out on a LOT of tax revenue that way. So I'm guess they make up for it by higher hotel & resort taxes on travelers?

Colorado is third lowest, and I don't think they're struggling to bring in tax revenue. So I'm guessing they make up for it with income taxes.

But are there any states known for very low property taxes who opt to make up that revenue solely with consumption/sales taxes? I'm too lazy to do the research.

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Hawaii is either uber rich, or complete dead beat poor. If they raise property taxes, they would see the rich find other places for their second, third, or fourth home. At the same time, the lowest income property owners probably can't even afford current property taxes.

AggieDruggist89 said:

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Property tax should be unconstitutional.

Otherwise it's a forever lease.

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100% this. Plus you cannot reasonably control the value of your property. You lose your job or retire and your income goes way down. But your house appreciates 10% in value so your property tax goes up. sorry tour income went down but FU Pay Us!

If property taxes go away then the State will have to enact an income tax, which I honestly would be fine with at this point.

Can't get around it with additional sales/sin/franchise taxes.

Florida benefits from large tourism (hotels, etc) taxes. That allows them to avoid state income tax and have low property taxes. It allows the state to have money and is popular with residents because it doesn't hit them. And fortunately the state is pretty enough that people keep visiting despite high taxes.

Texas needs to generate enough tax revenue to fund schools, cops, etc. Right now that is through extremely high property taxes.

We can either:

-Raise sales tax (probably by a lot) - will piss off all non homeowners
-Keep property taxes high - will piss off taxes
-install income tax - will piss off everyone
-tax businesses (oil and gas specifically) - runs the risk of slowing business growth

Gotta keep the lights on so it needs to be one of those. Florida is just lucky to have pretty beaches.

BoydCrowder13 said:

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-tax businesses (oil and gas specifically) - runs the risk of slowing business growth

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They already tax us mineral rights owners.

Ag CPA said:

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If property taxes go away then the State will have to enact an income tax, which I honestly would be fine with at this point.

Can't get around it with additional sales/sin/franchise taxes.

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Wasn't a ban placed in the constitution?

BoydCrowder13 said:

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Florida benefits from large tourism (hotels, etc) taxes. That allows them to avoid state income tax and have low property taxes. It allows the state to have money and is popular with residents because it doesn't hit them. And fortunately the state is pretty enough that people keep visiting despite high taxes.

Texas needs to generate enough tax revenue to fund schools, cops, etc. Right now that is through extremely high property taxes.

We can either:

-Raise sales tax (probably by a lot) - will piss off all non homeowners
-Keep property taxes high - will piss off taxes
-install income tax - will piss off everyone
-tax businesses (oil and gas specifically) - runs the risk of slowing business growth

Gotta keep the lights on so it needs to be one of those. Florida is just lucky to have pretty beaches.

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I'm all for the option that shares the burden with everyone who uses the services paid for by taxes. If you use them...pay for them. So if that means sales tax or income tax, so be it. Tired of homeowners footing most of the bill and being at the mercy of appraisals. And when the voters approve some ungodly $1 billion bond for schools, who foots the bill? Certainly not everyone who actually uses the schools.

BoydCrowder13 said:

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Florida benefits from large tourism (hotels, etc) taxes. That allows them to avoid state income tax and have low property taxes. It allows the state to have money and is popular with residents because it doesn't hit them. And fortunately the state is pretty enough that people keep visiting despite high taxes.

Texas needs to generate enough tax revenue to fund schools, cops, etc. Right now that is through extremely high property taxes.

We can either:

-Raise sales tax (probably by a lot) - will piss off all non homeowners
-Keep property taxes high - will piss off taxes
-install income tax - will piss off everyone
-tax businesses (oil and gas specifically) - runs the risk of slowing business growth

Gotta keep the lights on so it needs to be one of those. Florida is just lucky to have pretty beaches.

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This is where the people who have always been lefties expose themselves. Because you forgot one option..

- DRAMTICALLY CUT GOVERNMENT

This thought that reducing taxes in one place means we have to raise them in another to keep the same pie, its nonsense. We don't need a pie. Reduce it to a half portion slice.

The Walmart in Bryan got a multi year abatement and likely will negotiate another

I live in the midtown area, tax apprasial on commercial real estate are orders of magnitude lower than similar single and multifamly acerage even with adjoining lot boundaries

Business also pay other taxes, but the property taxes aren't anywhere near comparable to individual home owners

I'm a strong proponent of keeping government as local as is reasonably possible.

For example, a local military would have limited effectiveness. Even a state military would be limited. A national military can draw resources across the whole country and help maximize its effectiveness.

On the other hand, a town is perfectly capable of doing its own library. There is no need for the state or the federal government to take over running a town library.

Schools are also local and the local jurisdiction should be able to fund and operate the schools. Again, the state should have little involvement and the government (including the Department of Education) should have no involvement.

Sales taxes, by their nature, seem to be statewide. A great many rural counties cannot possibly live on their own sales taxes to provide necessary services. On the other hand, they do have property and property taxes are great at providing necessary services.

Schools are local. Police are local. Fire Departments are local. City governments are local. Libraries are local. These should all be funded out of local resources. Property taxes are proven to do a good job. Sales taxes to fund them would deeply involve the state in the collection and the distribution of those taxes to whomever they feel is worthy of receiving them. That also means state control of everyone who receives their funding from them -- schools, cities, police, ambulances, libraries, ... .

If you want pretty much total state control, go for sales taxes. If you want more control over your life, keep the property taxes.

Why would anyone want to "make up the difference"? Smash the size of govt til it hurts. We are vastly overtaxed currently.

rgag12 said:

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If you got rid of property tax then you'd have to massively increase sales tax, and then also expand state government because you'd need apparatus in place to spread the tax out across the state. You'd have a situation where rural police, emergency services, and schools would have zero money and would have to be appropriated money from the urban parts of the state.

Property tax ain't going away.

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Agreed. I think it's a pipe dream.

Also, that committee is run by a Democrat installed by Burrows. Probably on purpose to kill any reform here.

Heineken-Ashi said:

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BoydCrowder13 said:

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Florida benefits from large tourism (hotels, etc) taxes. That allows them to avoid state income tax and have low property taxes. It allows the state to have money and is popular with residents because it doesn't hit them. And fortunately the state is pretty enough that people keep visiting despite high taxes.

Texas needs to generate enough tax revenue to fund schools, cops, etc. Right now that is through extremely high property taxes.

We can either:

-Raise sales tax (probably by a lot) - will piss off all non homeowners
-Keep property taxes high - will piss off taxes
-install income tax - will piss off everyone
-tax businesses (oil and gas specifically) - runs the risk of slowing business growth

Gotta keep the lights on so it needs to be one of those. Florida is just lucky to have pretty beaches.

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This is where the people who have always been lefties expose themselves. Because you forgot one option..

- DRAMTICALLY CUT GOVERNMENT

This thought that reducing taxes in one place means we have to raise them in another to keep the same pie, its nonsense. We don't need a pie. Reduce it to a half portion slice.

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I agree with you on the federal budget. Unless you want to fully privatize education, fire, police, roads, etc, you need to have some form of tax revenue. And the choices are above. You cannot cut them all to zero. That is not how math works.

schmellba99 said:

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CrackerJackAg said:

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HumbleAg04 said:

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CrackerJackAg said:

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Property taxes need to stay. Dump the ag exemption for BS non productive properties that are just leaching off of every one else.

Legit farm yes. BS "farm" no,

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Great way to make land ownership impossible in Texas. Guess we should just give it all to the government to manage since normal people can't afford it anymore.

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I think the opposite. Exemptions allow EXISTING & incompetent land owners that can't afford it to hold on to massive amounts of land that aren't productive.

An ag exemption on non productive properties is theft from everyone else paying into the system.

Sell what you can't afford or manage productively.

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I despise the idea of large sections of undeveloped land suddenly needing to be chopped up and be developed because some people feel as if 100% of the land should be 100% utilized 100% of the time in a manner that they personally think should be utilized.

Also - there is a whole lot of land that simply cannot be effectively utilized for farming or ranching and is located in an area that does not have a population base to support selling it to walmart and having them build a store on it.

Property taxes are evil IMO. The only think you buy that you pay a sales tax on year in and year out - and don't even know what that tax will be until a bunch of appointed people decide what it is - is your property. But they will never go away in Texas because Texas is damn near full of Texans who think the way things have been done here is the only possibly way it could ever be done an any type of change is just impossible.

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If large land owners paid what I pay in taxes for my half acre then we could reduce costs for everyone across the board equally.

Large land owners are stealing from everyone else by avoiding paying taxes.

You have your opinion based on your situation. I have mine.

Large land owners vs small tract owners... That's a VERY broad brush and incredibly oversimplified argument.

If I owned 1000 undeveloped contiguous acres inside Loop 610 in Houston my tax bill regardless of Ag or other exemptions would be astronomical. If I have half an acre out in the middle of LaSalle County I could probably pay the tax bill with what I find inside my center console.

Location is the primary driver for undeveloped land valuations, and those valuations can only be based in the current. Not some future potential.

eric76 said:

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I'm a strong proponent of keeping government as local as is reasonably possible.

For example, a local military would have limited effectiveness. Even a state military would be limited. A national military can draw resources across the whole country and help maximize its effectiveness.

On the other hand, a town is perfectly capable of doing its own library. There is no need for the state or the federal government to take over running a town library.

Schools are also local and the local jurisdiction should be able to fund and operate the schools. Again, the state should have little involvement and the government (including the Department of Education) should have no involvement.

Sales taxes, by their nature, seem to be statewide. A great many rural counties cannot possibly live on their own sales taxes to provide necessary services. On the other hand, they do have property and property taxes are great at providing necessary services.

Schools are local. Police are local. Fire Departments are local. City governments are local. Libraries are local. These should all be funded out of local resources. Property taxes are proven to do a good job. Sales taxes to fund them would deeply involve the state in the collection and the distribution of those taxes to whomever they feel is worthy of receiving them. That also means state control of everyone who receives their funding from them -- schools, cities, police, ambulances, libraries, ... .

If you want pretty much total state control, go for sales taxes. If you want more control over your life, keep the property taxes.

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I don't disagree with you in general. But, federal vs state/local is different. At the federal level, the intent was that most of the power reside with the states. But at the state level (like Texas) the intent was that most of the power reside at the state level & not the local level. Like back when Abbott put COVID measures in place at the state level that overrode any local/city level requirements. Lots of people didn't like it, but ultimately that's the way we all agreed to set it up....state level holds more power than local.

Is there ANY state that constitutionally pushes most of the power to the lowest local level over the state level? Honestly curious.

I pay a relatively high property tax due to buying in a new development (MUD). I wished it was lower and definitely don't agree with all line item of the budget but glad everything is spent local and predominantly on safety, infrastructure, and schools.

Far from perfect but prefer to keep as-is as opposed to increasing sales taxes.