Tired of paying property taxes and watching them steadily increase? One Texas group may have a solution.
Texans for Fiscal Responsibility has a plan on how to control these levies, and perhaps even eliminate them. TFR Executive Director Jeramy Kitchen said it can be done, and the vast majority of Republicans voters are calling for such reform.
“The Texas Prosperity Plan is the three-point policy plan that we at Texans for Fiscal Responsibility (TFR) believe will put Texas on a path to future prosperity,” Kitchen told Lone Star Standard. “It is an admission that protecting the status quo is not near enough for taxpayers. The plan consists of the following three goals: ban the practice of taxpayer-funded lobbying, eliminate the property tax and freeze government spending.
"We believe that doing all three is in the best interest of not only Texas taxpayers but future generations of Texans,” he said. “Reducing the state budget would help slow the growth of government, to instead come into line with the rate of growth of population/inflation. Though the budget itself has fallen within those metrics since 2015, it is on track to triple its size since the year 2000 even though Texas’ population has only increased by about 40% in that same time period. We must cut the size and scope of government down to a size that’s both manageable and reasonable as the founders originally intended.”
Texas currently has the sixth-highest property taxes in the United States, often a burden to homeowners who are also having to deal with recently high levels of inflation nationally.
The median home price in Texas in June was $349,000. This was the first drop in monthly home prices in the state since December 2020. The Texas housing market has seen a 9.4% decline in sales growth year over year.
Kitchen said the state has the ability to reduce the need for property taxes. It just needs the political will to do so.
“Texans for Fiscal Responsibility believes we do not have a revenue problem, but rather a spending problem," he said. "This is best exhibited by the projected almost $27 billion surplus that lawmakers will have available in the upcoming legislative session. TFR believes that money represents an overcollection of taxpayer dollars and should instead be used to provide actual property tax relief to taxpayers instead of a 'free-for-all' for lawmakers to spend on their pet projects and increase the next biennial budget.
"This surplus could be used to put Texas on a path to the overall elimination of the property tax by 'buying down' the most significant portion of the levied property tax, school maintenance and operations," he said. "Simultaneously cutting spending by eliminating wasteful agencies and programs would also mean we could use even more of that money to hasten its elimination.”
On June 21, Gov. Gregg Abbott tweeted, “We must use a substantial portion of this money to cut property taxes in Texas.” The Texas comptroller is estimating that there will be a $30 billion account balance by the next legislative session.
Kitchen said Republican voters made their feelings clear during the 2022 primary election. There were 10 propositions on specific policy positions, including Proposition 2, which asked about the collection of the property tax in the state.
More than three-quarters of voters — 75.68% — voted to end all property tax collections within 10 years. It was a non-binding vote without legal authority, but it clearly conveyed the sentiment of Texas Republicans. The GOP has taken notice, Kitchen said.
“The Texas GOP recently included all of the issues in our Texas Prosperity Plan in its 2022 platform as well,” he said. “The hope is that since it is Republicans that control every statewide office and the state legislature they would support their own political party's platform.”
