Property taxes are a racket that STARTS with City, County, School District, and Special district budgets. They submit their budgets to the Appraisal District, the Appraisal district tells the taxing entities where to set their tax rate to cover all the planned expenses, and VOILA! Money becomes available. The taxing entities blame CAD, CAD blames the taxing entities...... And your Mayor, Judge, and Counilmen can crow "WE LOWERED YOUR TAX RATE X YEARS IN A ROW" with a perfectly straight face, all while knowing your taxes go up due to the appraisals going up. As for the "double nickel freeze" - at least in our county, the freeze is only on School M&O taxes, but NOT on bond debt. But Average Voter is not aware of this. Thus seniors (and soon, if Lt Dan has his way) 55+ people, will vote for bonds THINKING they are safe, but THEY ARE NOT. It's purposely confusing to keep us all in the dark and just doing what we're told. But all of this NONSENSE starts with growing government at the city, county, and local district level (including community college districts, emergency service districts, and MUDs....) - If We The People paid attention during EVERY budget cycle and asked ourselves "Is it really a core function of government to ......<insert spend line item here>" and demanded our public servants cut budgets accordingly, they wouldn't need so much of OUR MONEY to run the government. Increasing the homestead exemption just kicks the can down the road, gives a temporary victory for state-level leaders to put on campaign mailers "Delivering Property Tax Relief For You, AGAIN!", but does ZILCH to actually solve the problem. It does, however, court MAJOR favor with the 55+ crowd, who are the ones who are the most reliable voters.....probably a smart move by a politician, right?
Oh and remember this (or learn it, if you didn't know it) - WHO elects your County Appraisal Board? Well boys and girls, each taxing entity gets a certain number of votes (think "electoral college") and THEY submit the people that the OTHER taxing entities all cast their votes for. (THE TAXING ENTITIES vote, not us!) In my county the ISD has 100X the number of votes of any city in the county so guess whose people get on the board? The Legislature cried foul on this and in yet another lame attempt to "fix property taxes" they passed a law requiring that (in counties over a threshold size for some reason) a certain number of CAD Board members be elected. BUT GUESS WHAT...... at least in my county, these open seats were NOT widely publicized. Their FILING DEADLINES closed at the end of October.... and you file with the Board itself... on dates not in synch with other local races and filing deadlines..... so unless you were checking their website for this you'd never know there was an open seat that could actually be put on the May ballot. So what happened the first year there were open seats for anyone to file for? You guessed it..... their people ran unopposed. Guess what happened this year? Same thing (I forgot to check to see when the filing deadline was). And EVEN IF We The People got one or two of our people on the CAD Board..... they would not be enough to change an outcome. Yet another way for our legislature to claim to fix a problem with a bandaid when a tourniquet is needed.
In Minnesota (where the highest percentage of young people "own" homes) our elected officials have knowingly falsified figures where all homes are now collateral for bogus bond issues.
Good points but consider this: when You are younger and buy a home budgeting what you can afford monthly, but taxes keep increasing due to the spike in appraisal of that home over years and can no longer afford the home, and compound that with retiring on much lower income, you become punished for making wise choices investing in a home. As a member of the county tax appraisal review board, I can say that you are not fairly representing the struggles of seniors. And by the way, your meme is deceptive. When you are renting, I can assure you that you are paying property taxes: landlords aren’t donating when they pay property taxes, they raise your rent. The real problem with Lt. Dan’s strategy is that he did not pair his plan to include a boost for first time home buyers. Congress has however introduced a bill that is geared at putting more homes on the market for first time homebuyers. There’s much to be done!
Agreed in that renters ARE paying property taxes - does anyone seriously think they are just going to EAT tax increases on themselves without passing it along to their renters? Same goes for business property owners.... when THEIR rent goes up, so does the cost of the goods and services they sell to us from the storefront. So when your ISD tells you "Seniors won't feel it" (soon to be 55+ won't feel it) they are LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH. We ALL feel it in the higher costs of goods and services. Our Texas Constitution allows property taxes. Repealing THAT, is a Constitutional Amendment I could get behind. (not holding my breath though). That being said - if ANYONE ever tells you to replace a Property Tax with a VAT, you need to RUN SCREAMING. VATs have taxes added at every point in the supply chain and are invisible to consumers. Politicians love them because the MONEY KEEPS FLOWING IN .... and people don't realize it. Whereas a sales tax is just paid by the end user and NOT everyone else in between, and consumers know exactly how much the government is getting from them. Sorry, taxes are a big deal to me... people need to know way more about how government makes its money (spoiler alert - it's OUR money). If only our schools taught this....
Even if we shipped all the illegals back home tomorrow, the appraisal districts WILL NOT decrease home values in a timely manner. We are going to have to have house prices plummet and stay down for years before they react to the market.
Correct, housing prices but NOT property tax values. If my entire neighborhood's value drops by 50% next year, that will not show up for a few years in reduced property taxes.
Property taxes are a racket that STARTS with City, County, School District, and Special district budgets. They submit their budgets to the Appraisal District, the Appraisal district tells the taxing entities where to set their tax rate to cover all the planned expenses, and VOILA! Money becomes available. The taxing entities blame CAD, CAD blames the taxing entities...... And your Mayor, Judge, and Counilmen can crow "WE LOWERED YOUR TAX RATE X YEARS IN A ROW" with a perfectly straight face, all while knowing your taxes go up due to the appraisals going up. As for the "double nickel freeze" - at least in our county, the freeze is only on School M&O taxes, but NOT on bond debt. But Average Voter is not aware of this. Thus seniors (and soon, if Lt Dan has his way) 55+ people, will vote for bonds THINKING they are safe, but THEY ARE NOT. It's purposely confusing to keep us all in the dark and just doing what we're told. But all of this NONSENSE starts with growing government at the city, county, and local district level (including community college districts, emergency service districts, and MUDs....) - If We The People paid attention during EVERY budget cycle and asked ourselves "Is it really a core function of government to ......<insert spend line item here>" and demanded our public servants cut budgets accordingly, they wouldn't need so much of OUR MONEY to run the government. Increasing the homestead exemption just kicks the can down the road, gives a temporary victory for state-level leaders to put on campaign mailers "Delivering Property Tax Relief For You, AGAIN!", but does ZILCH to actually solve the problem. It does, however, court MAJOR favor with the 55+ crowd, who are the ones who are the most reliable voters.....probably a smart move by a politician, right?
Oh and remember this (or learn it, if you didn't know it) - WHO elects your County Appraisal Board? Well boys and girls, each taxing entity gets a certain number of votes (think "electoral college") and THEY submit the people that the OTHER taxing entities all cast their votes for. (THE TAXING ENTITIES vote, not us!) In my county the ISD has 100X the number of votes of any city in the county so guess whose people get on the board? The Legislature cried foul on this and in yet another lame attempt to "fix property taxes" they passed a law requiring that (in counties over a threshold size for some reason) a certain number of CAD Board members be elected. BUT GUESS WHAT...... at least in my county, these open seats were NOT widely publicized. Their FILING DEADLINES closed at the end of October.... and you file with the Board itself... on dates not in synch with other local races and filing deadlines..... so unless you were checking their website for this you'd never know there was an open seat that could actually be put on the May ballot. So what happened the first year there were open seats for anyone to file for? You guessed it..... their people ran unopposed. Guess what happened this year? Same thing (I forgot to check to see when the filing deadline was). And EVEN IF We The People got one or two of our people on the CAD Board..... they would not be enough to change an outcome. Yet another way for our legislature to claim to fix a problem with a bandaid when a tourniquet is needed.
In Minnesota (where the highest percentage of young people "own" homes) our elected officials have knowingly falsified figures where all homes are now collateral for bogus bond issues.
Good points but consider this: when You are younger and buy a home budgeting what you can afford monthly, but taxes keep increasing due to the spike in appraisal of that home over years and can no longer afford the home, and compound that with retiring on much lower income, you become punished for making wise choices investing in a home. As a member of the county tax appraisal review board, I can say that you are not fairly representing the struggles of seniors. And by the way, your meme is deceptive. When you are renting, I can assure you that you are paying property taxes: landlords aren’t donating when they pay property taxes, they raise your rent. The real problem with Lt. Dan’s strategy is that he did not pair his plan to include a boost for first time home buyers. Congress has however introduced a bill that is geared at putting more homes on the market for first time homebuyers. There’s much to be done!
Agreed in that renters ARE paying property taxes - does anyone seriously think they are just going to EAT tax increases on themselves without passing it along to their renters? Same goes for business property owners.... when THEIR rent goes up, so does the cost of the goods and services they sell to us from the storefront. So when your ISD tells you "Seniors won't feel it" (soon to be 55+ won't feel it) they are LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH. We ALL feel it in the higher costs of goods and services. Our Texas Constitution allows property taxes. Repealing THAT, is a Constitutional Amendment I could get behind. (not holding my breath though). That being said - if ANYONE ever tells you to replace a Property Tax with a VAT, you need to RUN SCREAMING. VATs have taxes added at every point in the supply chain and are invisible to consumers. Politicians love them because the MONEY KEEPS FLOWING IN .... and people don't realize it. Whereas a sales tax is just paid by the end user and NOT everyone else in between, and consumers know exactly how much the government is getting from them. Sorry, taxes are a big deal to me... people need to know way more about how government makes its money (spoiler alert - it's OUR money). If only our schools taught this....
The baby boomer generation and its consequences have been a disaster for the American people.
Even if we shipped all the illegals back home tomorrow, the appraisal districts WILL NOT decrease home values in a timely manner. We are going to have to have house prices plummet and stay down for years before they react to the market.
If you deport all the illegals demand for housing will drop significantly. That’s easily the quickest way to begin housing prices down.
Correct, housing prices but NOT property tax values. If my entire neighborhood's value drops by 50% next year, that will not show up for a few years in reduced property taxes.
Oh yes, I misunderstood. There would be a lag for sure.