Texas politicians have been unwilling to take the required steps to eliminate property taxes, or even provide meaningful property tax relief, and bad policy decisions are to blame, according to a former gubernatorial candidate.
“What is needed to make this happen is fiscal discipline, but it is much easier for politicians to spend money than save it and return it to taxpayers,” Don Huffines, who challenged incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott in the 2022 GOP primary, told Austin Journal.
Huffines has since transformed his run for the governorship into an initiative, the Huffines Liberty Foundation, which promotes limited government and social conservatism, its website states. Considered one of the largest real estate developers in Dallas, Huffines was first elected to the Texas Senate in 2015 and served until 2019.
“Legislators have made the politically motivated decision to raise the homestead exemption instead of controlling spending,” he said. “That is an example of bad tax policy that doesn’t solve the property tax problem.”
A recent research paper issued by his foundation compared the property tax rates of Texas and Florida.
The report found that Texas is among the 51 states with the highest property tax burdens with Texas businesses shouldering the ninth-highest burden and homeowners carrying the sixth highest.
“Property taxes in Texas are higher than in Florida because Texas government spends more money per capita at the state and local level than Florida does,” Huffines said. “Taxes pay for government spending. If we want to reduce taxes, we have to reduce government spending.”
The study further determined that spending largesse by school districts and local governments is driving the state’s rising property tax rate.
“Special interests, school districts, and local governments are the major obstacle to eliminating school maintenance and operations property taxes,” Huffines told the Austin Journal. “Like state politicians, local government officials all want more taxpayer money to spend and push back hard when conservatives attempt to hold them accountable to taxpayers for how much they spend.”
Huffines believes that the solution to eliminating school property taxes involves a simple five-pronged approach:
The Texas Legislature must first freeze school property taxes, control state, and local spending; use the surplus created from fiscal discipline to buy down school property taxes over time; require local governments to ask permission from voters to increase property taxes; and, finally, protect taxpayers by inserting the buy down plan into the Texas Constitution.
“It is important that businesses and homeowners know the path so they can plan and make monetary decisions that will boost the Texas economy now,” Huffines added. “A good first step toward this would be to use all $27 billion of the current budget surplus for reducing property taxes.”
To critics who believe that property taxes are needed to pay for public schooling and local government, Huffines argues that the revenue needed to pay for school is already centralized and flows through state funding formulas.
“We can fund public education in Texas using state tax revenue just as well as we can with property tax revenue,” he said. “We want to make sure all students get a good education. But more money doesn’t equate to a good education. Governments never have enough taxpayer money. ISD’s must get creative, which is why we need parental choice to spur competition, which always increases quality and reduces prices of products.”