Tax Rebates Are An Emergency, Kids Are Not
By Vince Leibowitz on Jan 15, 2007 in Texas Legislature
Property tax relief for senior citizens. Legislation authorizing state tax rebates. Emergencies? Hardly.
But Governor Perry thinks so, having decliared those two items as “emergency” issues for the 80th Legislature:
Legislation authorizing the reduction of ad valorem taxes that may be imposed for public school purposes on the residence homesteads of the elderly or disabled to reflect any reduction in the rate of those taxes.
Legislation providing that state appropriations made for the purpose of directly reducing local property taxes and state appropriations made for the purpose of returning state funds to the public do not count against the constitutional state spending limit and authorizing the legislature to provide for the grant of public money for the purpose of returning state funds to the public.
The first one is a “warm fuzzy.” Who doesn’t want the elderly and disbled to pay less taxes? No one.
But, Perry’s concept here is off kilter. While public school taxes may make up a disproportionate portion of an individual’s tax bill in many areas across the state, you still have county, municipal, and even college and special district taxes piled on top of that. Thus, the “relief” potentially being offered isn’t significant enough to warrant the costs to the state budget.
Further, this caters to the belief held by many senior citizens that they should pay less school taxes because they don’t have children in school. The fact that the taxes of those over 65 are frozen is already causing higher tax rates in some districts and will only make things worse as the state’s population ages and lives longer.
His second “emergency” is even more entertaining. First off, there is no guarantee that any kind of tax “refund” will pass the Legislature. Yet Perry’s “emergency” is for legislation to allow these hypothetical refunds to be made without having them count against the constitutional spending cap.
Of course, this sideways, backdoor approach to “busting” the spending cap won’t sit well with some of the ultra-conservatives in his party who want government to be small enough to drown in one of Speaker Craddick’s $1,000 toilets.
The bottom line is that the bogus concept of “tax reform” is not an emergency. Children’s healthcare is an emergency. Prison overpopulation is an emergency. “Tax Reform” is not.
You are totally correct about the over-65 freeze, which is one of the biggest sacred cows around. Lots of 0ver-65s can pay their full property tax bill without blinking, while plenty of Under-65s who are struggling to raise a family while holding two jobs need some help. Most states deal with this with a “circuitbreaker” that guarantees that your property taxes will never be more than a certain percentage of your income. Texas could definitely use one of those — plus maybe an income tax to knock down the property tax for everyone (see Bullock Amendment).