A detailed critique of Texas’ property-tax politics posted by Dallas real estate investor Barrett Linburg has drawn more than 250,000 views on X and injected fresh urgency into a long-simmering debate at the Capitol, where lawmakers are pushing to abolish the tax entirely.
Linburg, co-founder of the Dallas multifamily investment firm Savoy Equity Partners, posted a lengthy microblog Monday arguing that calls to eliminate Texas’s property taxes are “a mathematical lie,” contending the state cannot replace the roughly $81 billion in annual local property-tax collections without either dramatically raising the state sales tax or shifting financial power from local governments to Austin.
“Property taxes generate $81 billion a year… You can’t delete $81 billion. You have to replace it,” Linburg wrote.
He argued that because the Texas Constitution bans both income taxes and wealth taxes, “the only lever left is sales tax,” which he estimated would need to exceed 20 percent to backfill lost revenue.
Linburg warned such a shift would hit low-income families hardest, while offering the greatest benefit to owners of higher-value properties and commercial real estate. He also argued that eliminating locally levied school taxes would effectively centralize control of school districts in the state government.
Texas politicians are promising to "eliminate property taxes."
It polls at 80%. It wins elections.
And it is a mathematical lie.
Texas runs on a two-legged stool.
Most states have three revenue sources: Income Tax, Sales Tax, Property Tax.
We banned income tax. We banned…
— Barrett Linburg (@DallasAptGP) December 1, 2025
Lindburg’s post is at odds with numerous GOP voices in Texas.
Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian) has repeatedly called on Gov. Greg Abbott to convene another special legislative session to “put Texas on a path to eliminate property taxes.”
Harrison posted a letter to Abbott insisting that lawmakers must stop “taxpayer-funded DEI, LGBTQ indoctrination, and liberal Hollywood,” ban taxpayer-funded lobbying, trim state spending, and begin phasing out property taxes altogether.
Harrison has long argued that warnings of steep sales-tax hikes are overstated, adding that abolishing the tax would force local governments to cut bloated budgets.
“They don’t want to upset cities, counties and school districts that are getting rich, hand over fist, taxing Texas citizens out of their homes,” he said in an August interview with Semafor. “They are every bit as addicted to spending as the Democrats.”
Budget analysts, however, have repeatedly told lawmakers that replacing the tax would be extraordinarily expensive.
The Legislative Budget Board previously advised senators that eliminating all property taxes collected by school districts, cities, counties, and special-purpose districts would have cost the state $81.5 billion in 2023, more than half of Texas’s current two-year budget, per the Texas Tribune.
Some analysts warned that replicating that revenue would require more than doubling the state sales-tax rate, creating a far more volatile funding structure and increasing the tax burden on low- and middle-income Texans.
The largest share of the property-tax load belongs to school districts.
School maintenance and operations taxes alone account for roughly 43% of Texas’ property-tax collections, according to a report from the Huffines Liberty Foundation. Ending that portion has long been considered the most attainable piece of full elimination.
Some economists and activist organizations, including the Huffines Liberty Foundation, contend the school M&O tax could be phased out in six to eight years without raising taxes if lawmakers cap state spending growth at 2.9 percent or below and dedicate 90 percent of budget surpluses to permanent tax compression.
“Depending on what the Legislature does, the school M&O tax will be either closing in on $50 billion or $0,” the report said, arguing that repeated attempts at property-tax relief have failed because state and local spending continues to grow.
Some state leaders, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Senate Finance Chair Paul Bettencourt, have reportedly remained skeptical that eliminating the tax is financially realistic. They have instead focused on compressing school tax rates using surplus dollars, the same approach Linburg highlighted in his viral post.
For Linburg, whose firm invests heavily in real estate, the financial mechanics are more than an ideological debate, noting that complete elimination is being sold as an easy fix that glosses over hard arithmetic.
“They aren’t offering a free lunch,” Linburg warned. “They’re offering a different bill.”
