Ag87H2O said:

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Burrows is such a snake. He's no better than Phelan other than he isn't drunk at the dais.

Hard to believe this is the best Republicans can do. I hope every Republican that voted for Burrows for Speaker gets primaried.

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You've said nothing that is relavant to the original post. The issue is Burrows and the RINO's wasting a couple of months in a bid to not have to vote on actual conservative bills.

He's doing a great job. We haven't had a fighter in the House in decades like him.

We will turn the tide by showing Texas what a farse the House RIno faction is to state governance.

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We will turn the tide by showing Texas what a farse the House RIno faction is to state governance.

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Burrows will show what a farce he is?

This is a confusing post. The conservatives got shut out. Again. It will take leadership with integrity to stop this. Hopefully one of the reps who had no voice this session will be able to get into leadership in two years. The charade rolls along.

K. Highest Sales Tax in the US (per 10 seconds of googling) is Louisiana with 10.12%. Texas is already at 8.25%. I'd assume (key) we'd need it to be well over 15% if we eliminate property and keep income off the table. You think the public would go for that?

WestAustinAg said:

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Ag87H2O said:

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Burrows is such a snake. He's no better than Phelan other than he isn't drunk at the dais.

Hard to believe this is the best Republicans can do. I hope every Republican that voted for Burrows for Speaker gets primaried.

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You've said nothing that is relavant to the original post. The issue is Burrows and the RINO's wasting a couple of months in a bid to not have to vote on actual conservative bills.

He's doing a great job. We haven't had a fighter in the House in decades like him.

We will turn the tide by showing Texas what a farse the House RIno faction is to state governance.

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Look at the date on the OP. My comments were from over 6 weeks ago, well before the more recent video Ellis posted today, and simply commenting on what a turncoat Burrows is.

I do agree with you that Harrison is doing a great job calling out and exposing Burrows and his comrades.

Republicans need to start by going after every freshman that supported Burrows for Speaker and then determine which Burrows Republicans are most vulnerable and go after them too.

Ellis Wyatt said:

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Quote:

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We will turn the tide by showing Texas what a farse the House RIno faction is to state governance.

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Burrows will show what a farce he is?

This is a confusing post. The conservatives got shut out. Again. It will take leadership with integrity to stop this. Hopefully one of the reps who had no voice this session will be able to get into leadership in two years. The charade rolls along.

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I see what i did...burrows is the snake. I agree.

I thought for some reason (i'm not drunk) that you were criticizing Harrison. My mistake...the original thought was 100% accurate.

So you are proposing a VAT, not a sales tax.

Gaeilge said:

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Ol Jock 99 said:

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K. Highest Sales Tax in the US (per 10 seconds of googling) is Louisiana with 10.12%. Texas is already at 8.25%. I'd assume (key) we'd need it to be well over 15% if we eliminate property and keep income off the table. You think the public would go for that?

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Texas GDP is fast approaching, if not already exceeded $3T. Add ~2.6% to current sales tax to make up for the ~$75B generated in property taxes and move on down the road.

Next subject.

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I don't think that math works. Texas collected a little over $46B in sales tax in 2024. I'm not clear but I believe this is both the state 6.25% piece and the local add-on of up to 2% before it is sent back to the localities. For the sake of argument, let's assume it's the whole 8.25%. To replace the $75B, you would need almost 2X the tax rate if purchasing decisions don't change at all. That's well over 15%.

If it's just the 6.25% piece, we're still approaching 15% after adding the local kicker.

There's no way an additional 2.6% gets us there.

Pinochet said:

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Gaeilge said:

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Ol Jock 99 said:

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K. Highest Sales Tax in the US (per 10 seconds of googling) is Louisiana with 10.12%. Texas is already at 8.25%. I'd assume (key) we'd need it to be well over 15% if we eliminate property and keep income off the table. You think the public would go for that?

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Texas GDP is fast approaching, if not already exceeded $3T. Add ~2.6% to current sales tax to make up for the ~$75B generated in property taxes and move on down the road.

Next subject.

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I don't think that math works. Texas collected a little over $46B in sales tax in 2024. I'm not clear but I believe this is both the state 6.25% piece and the local add-on of up to 2% before it is sent back to the localities. For the sake of argument, let's assume it's the whole 8.25%. To replace the $75B, you would need almost 2X the tax rate if purchasing decisions don't change at all. That's well over 15%.

If it's just the 6.25% piece, we're still approaching 15% after adding the local kicker.

There's no way an additional 2.6% gets us there.

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Just eliminate property taxes and cut state and local spending by 50%. That would be a huge productivity boost for the state and a great start and getting spending where it needs to be.

Republicans need to get these Rinos out - I'm now curious what property tax reform bills this assho killled.. this pisses me off, he probably just cost alot of us thousands of dollars most likely.. they need to organize and get rid of pukes like this. Bust Out Another Thousand because of this Rino screwed us on property tax reform

I

Fine. Do a single sales tax at time of transaction like any other physical thing we purchase.

Sometimes I wonder if comments like this as a response to how the gov can replace one tax with another are actually serious or just throwing red meat for blue stars. Consumption tax! Cut spending! Fair tax! Taxation is theft! 2A!

Of course cutting spending makes it easier to cut taxes, but obviously if it was so easy to cut spending, our property tax bills would be half what they are now. This was just a response to someone saying it would only take a small additional sales tax to raise enough to replace property tax.

Why are y'all arguing over property taxes? Our legislature will never discuss it unless republicans can ever gain control of the House. At best, that's two years away. More likely never.

Pinochet said:

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Sometimes I wonder if comments like this as a response to how the gov can replace one tax with another are actually serious or just throwing red meat for blue stars. Consumption tax! Cut spending! Fair tax! Taxation is theft! 2A!

Of course cutting spending makes it easier to cut taxes, but obviously if it was so easy to cut spending, our property tax bills would be half what they are now. This was just a response to someone saying it would only take a small additional sales tax to raise enough to replace property tax.

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What do you want? We have a spending problem, which causes a taxing problem. If we quit paying crazy school bonds and handing money to Hollywood, it wouldn't really matter how we were taxed. If it's true that sales tax would have to double to support current spending, doesn't that just illustrate how absurdly large our government has become? The fact remains that we need to eliminate property taxes; it's worse than an income tax.

Gaeilge said:

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Fine. Do a single sales tax at time of transaction like any other physical thing we purchase.

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Are you suggesting a real property transfer tax? Let's do that math then. Average yearly tax rate is 1.38% across Texas. If you assume houses sell every 10 years, you need a 13.8% tax on the sale. That seems like an easy sell to constituents. I can't find total value of property sales or even average, or I would have done it that way.

Obviously home sales will go down if a buyer has to pay a tax as large the down payment, so then to break even, we will have to go to higher rate. Are you ok with a 15-20% tax when you buy real property? If not, what rate would you be ok with?

Allow the tax to be rolled into the mortgage.

As it stands now, we're paying the government for the privilege to live on land that we own. Single POS tax puts it in line with everything else that we buy. We roll got sales tax into auto loans, so let them do it with mortgages.

I'm just tossing out ideas. Because as it is now it is absolutely bull**** that we never own our land.

Why don't we trade it for an income tax then? You can structure it in a way that is less progressive than federal and everyone already knows what an income tax is. Renters still have to pay explicitly instead of embedded in rent. Texas is one of the only states left without an income tax. Might as well do it. Or just make everyone pay a government tax/fee of 3-5k to live in Texas.

"Allowing" it to be included in a mortgage is a weird comment. You can include anything you want in a mortgage, even property tax. That doesn't change the fact that you'll be paying a 15% surcharge to buy real property.

So a 20% sales tax?

As if we apply sales tax rate to entire GDP.

Excellent idea. Except, what exactly would you cut?

We have a spending problem. If we cut spending we can reduce one or more taxes. If we don't cut spending, elimination of one tax requires raising another tax. Texas is not a highly taxed state, but without an income tax our property tax and sales taxes are left to generate much of our revenue.
It always seems backwards to me to argue we should reduce taxes without explaining how we are going to simultaneously cut spending. Actually, it sounds like our FEDERAL representatives. Just borrow! Thank goodness Texas must have a balanced budget for most of its spending

On another front, the "Rainy Day Fund" has gone from just over 10 billion dollars at the end of 2022 up to a projected 27 billion plus at the end of this year. It will hit its Constitutionally mandated cap for the first time in its history.

To see that kind of rapid growth, there is no question we are being over taxed. Even if you kept spending at current levels, there is plenty of room for property tax reductions.

Burrows and every Republican that supported his Speakership should be bum rushed out of the legislature for killing the Republican tax initiatives. He is nothing more than a colossal tool for the Democrats.

Ol Jock 99 said:

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K. Highest Sales Tax in the US (per 10 seconds of googling) is Louisiana with 10.12%. Texas is already at 8.25%. I'd assume (key) we'd need it to be well over 15% if we eliminate property and keep income off the table. You think the public would go for that?

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They would if it eliminated property tax. You don't need 100% of the people to buy in. Trust me, you would have a majority of those that vote be in favor. You would also increase home ownership since more affordable. My perception on the property tax issue is first retirement incomes cannot keep up and second is there is zero accountability (other than the annual cap) to the property assessment process.

In FY24 Texas property tax collections were $86.8 B. These monies are all for local government finance, be it cities or special districts or school districts. The state does not directly spend property tax revenues. (It does take local property tax revenue into account in the public school funding formula so there is some state redirection of property tax revenues among local entities.)

The state government sales tax rate is 6.25%, and local entities (cities, counties) can tack on up to 2%. In FY 24 state sales tax revenue was $47.2B, and local sales tax revenue was about $15.3 B. If a local tax rate of 2% generates $15.3 B, it will be no small increase in the rate to generate an increase in local sales tax revenue that will replace the current $86.8 B of property taxes. We would need an 11 percentage point increase in the sales tax rate, so the current 8.25% would rise to 19.25%. That's a European VAT - sized rate. And the calculation assumes that there will be no leakage of taxpayers and purchases of taxable items when the sales tax rate increases from 8.25% to 19.25%, which is almost certainly false. People near the borders will be driving to OK, LA, or NM for items instead of paying a 20% tax.

Will you trade property tax elimination for a nearly 20% sales tax rate? (That new car is going to be pricey!)

I'm shocked people here are in favor of sending all their state tax money to Austin and waiting on those dumbasses to give it back to their local governments.

ts5641 said:

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Burrows acts just like a smarmy democrat.

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Folks on this forum discussing Democrats are like the Bluths on Arrested Development mimicking what they think chickens sound like.

We have a spending problem. That is the only problem really to solve. The rest is solved by solving that.