Texas Legislature finally has deal to cut your property taxes. It’s about dang time | Opinion

Texas lawmakers have reached a deal on property tax cuts, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan announced Monday. It’s about dang time.

The plan, like any big compromise, won’t satisfy everyone. But it offers significant tax relief for businesses and homeowners who have been hammered with higher bills, thanks to rapid increase in property appraisals. It shouldn’t have taken the Legislature its entire regular session and two special sessions to get it done, but what matters is that the deal gets to Gov. Greg Abbott and he signs it, pronto.

The $18 billion bill will include more than $12 billion to reduce school property tax rates. That measure offers the broadest relief, and the House wanted all the money to go toward so-called rate compression.

About 5.7 million homeowners will see their homestead exemption — the amount of value of your home that isn’t taxed — increase to $100,000. That was important to senators, who wanted to tip tax relief toward homeowners, an important voting group.

The deal includes an experimental “circuit breaker” for increases in other properties’ values. It’s not yet clear exactly how it would work, but the idea is for a 20% break on appraisals, probably to direct more relief to businesses and try to help the spiraling rental market. With appraisals always on the rise, though, it’s hard to see how much that will move the needle for renters.

Around 30% of Texans rent. As one local economist noted, cutting the appraisals for rental and business property could lead to higher tax rates, as local governments seek to replace lost revenue.

The deal was partly hung up on the House’s insistence, backed by Abbott, on trying to put the state on a path to eliminate local school property taxes through state budget surpluses. Conservative backers of that idea, which would mean higher sales taxes and less local control, grumbled about the compromise almost immediately.

A $100,000 homestead exemption in the Fort Worth school district would mean $769 in savings on the tax bill of someone with a $350,000 home that was already using the $40,000 exemption. Reducing school tax rates will save additional money.

Are taxpayers the winners here? Time will tell.

Even with this deal done, lawmakers won’t be abandoning Austin entirely. But now, the Legislature can move on to other topics, such as the school choice plan that Abbott wants and, we hope, other provisions to address the state’s lagging schools. And in the fall, there’s the Senate impeachment trial of Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The drama in Austin is hardly finished, but at least taxpayers are getting a much-needed break.

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