With lawmakers returning to the Capitol in the coming weeks, advocates for fiscal responsibility are calling on them to put Texas on a path to eliminate property taxes. Texas is currently ranked as the state with the sixth-highest property taxes in the country.
The Republican Party of Texas platform calls for lawmakers to “ax the property tax.”
In 2023, the battle between the House and Senate chambers over the means of property tax relief saw the governor calling multiple special sessions to force a compromise between the two chambers.
With a $33 billion surplus in tax dollars, lawmakers allotted $12.7 to new property tax relief.
This came in the form of $7 billion in new compression of local school property taxes, an increase of the homestead exemption from $40,000 to $100,000, and a “20% circuit breaker” appraisal cap on non-homesteaded properties under $5 million in value for a three-year pilot program.
Currently, the surplus for 2025 appears to be around $18 billion, and lawmakers will once again have the opportunity to return tax dollars to Texans in the form of tax relief.
This time, policy experts at the Texas Public Policy Foundation are warning that lawmakers need to do more to protect taxpayers from local governments stealing back any savings provided by the state through local tax increases.
While lawmakers have filed a slew of proposals in pursuit of such aims, citizens are awaiting action.
The Huffines Liberty Foundation maintains the only way to achieve long-term property tax cuts is to eliminate school M&O property taxes by gradually reducing the school M&O property tax rate to $0 over several years, using state surplus revenue.
Andrew McVeigh, president of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, told Texas Scorecard that under the current tax systems, Texans never own their homes.
“Many politicians do not want to admit the hard reality that property taxes, in their current form in Texas, serve as perpetual rent to the government. Property ownership, in its truest sense, does not really exist,” explained McVeigh. “Something else that does not really exist is substantial and lasting property tax relief, despite what many elected officials and the media claim.”
McVeigh said lawmakers’ recent efforts have “fallen short.” “It’s like putting a band-aid on a gushing wound—it might slow the bleeding for a minute, but it will quickly be overwhelmed, and the wound will get worse.”
He advised that in the upcoming 89th session, “the legislature must take concrete steps, not half-measures, to put Texas on a pathway to eliminating property taxes by utilizing two key tools: spending restraint and using surplus revenue to compress rates until eliminated.”
The 89th Legislative Session will begin on January 14.