Taxation, Texas
The people promoting Texas as a location for business constantly push the idea that the state does not have an income tax. While that has some appeal, newcomers learn that there are property taxes that are almost punitive, and that force homeowners to carry the tax burden for corporations. Not only are corporations given huge property tax breaks by municipalities when they relocate to Texas, they are also being provided millions of dollars in tax money from the state’s Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) to bring their companies to Texas. And homeowners are generally subsidizing this with outsized property taxes and valuations.
No one in the state legislature, or running for a statewide office, is ever going to promote a state income tax to offset property tax increases. But the high taxes on homes are a direct consequence of a legislature that historically refuses to accept constitutional responsibility for funding education. Every two years, lawmakers fail to spend on public education in the equitable manner dictated by the constitution, and the state ends up being sued. In one form or another, Texas has been fighting lawsuits over education funding since the initial case in 1968, Rodriquez v Board of Education.
And the state always loses.
The court will then mandate a new constitutional plan and the legislature will return to session and will pass a new law to pay for schools and it will be implemented and will be found wanting and another lawsuit will be filed. This is not frivolous litigation since the court tends to find for the local school districts that are demanding fairness. The students in poor communities deserve an education that is equal to the quality in upscale neighborhoods, but when funding is based upon the valuation of the property in the school district there will continue to be dramatic inequities.
Lawmakers abdicate doing the job they were elected to accomplish by cutting the education budgets and forcing the financial pressure down to the local level. Districts are given flexibility on raising tax rates by proposing increases and then holding Tax Ratification Elections. In any case, the money the legislature is supposed to send to the local district, but never adequately provides, has to be found and, consequently, either tax rates go up on property or the values of those properties are found to increase. Both raise money for the local school board that the legislature failed to provide as required by law.
More at http://www.dontgrowtexas.com/taxation-texas/ .
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