For years our Texas Legislature has promised us tax relief, but they never seem to deliver. After every session they take a victory lap, claiming to have delivered tax relief, and yet every year our property taxes seem to go up, and not down. This last session they are claiming to have delivered the biggest tax break in Texas history, but once again they have used fuzzy math, included past compression and have not adjusted their numbers for inflation.
In fact this last year the State had a 33 billion dollar surplus. That means Texans were over taxed by 33 billion dollars. But did our legislature return this money to the taxpayers? No. They voted to keep it, and find more places to spend it.
Ronald Reagan said that spending is the leading cause of taxation, and that if you want to lower taxes, you must reduce spending. He illustrated this point by comparing government to a child who spends too much money. The solution, he said, was that you quit giving them so much money, and they will quit spending it.
But our RINO State Legislature has lost sight of these conservative principles, and knowing they have overtaxed Texans, look for even more things on which to spend taxpayer dollars.
And even when our legislature creates the illusion that they have provided tax relief (when have your taxes ever actually gone down?) it is usually based on the homestead exemption. Sadly this kind of alleged tax relief shifts the tax burden from home owners to renters. Landlords do not enjoy homestead exemptions, and pass their tax burden to their renters, who pay hidden property tax in their rent. This means we are robbing renters to benefit homeowners.
So the time has come to end property tax in Texas! Yes, this can be done. It would need to be phased out over ten years. But first, let me explain why this must be done.
Under the property tax system, property owners, in effect, rent their property, Their property tax, is effectively rent. and if they fail to pay their rent, the state will foreclose and evict them. This means that the government is landlord over every property owner in Texas (short of Churches and other tax exempt property). And what do we call it when the government owns all the property? When the government owns all property, that is called "Communism". That's right, the Texas property tax system is back door Communism. And because of this, Texans are never secure in their homes. A Texan can spend a lifetime of work paying off a home, and never feel confident that in their old age, after their working years, that the government will not tax them out of their homes, or even worse yet, leave behind a widow who is taxed out of her home!
Yes we can end property tax in Texas. We will need to phase it out over ten years. For the first five years we will pay down the next years tax with the annual surplus (the amount by which Texans are already being overtaxed each year) and we will need to phase in a voluntary tax. By this I mean a very slight increase in sales tax, perhaps a quarter percent.
Property tax is an involuntary tax, it is a tax on not being homeless (as explained above, even renters pay property tax built into their rent). We do not charge sales tax on basic groceries in Texas, because we do not want to tax people for simple being survival (eating), so why should we tax them for shelter? Taxation is theft, and if we must be taxed, let that tax be voluntary, on things you choose to buy (not, for example, groceries). Whatever your property tax is, imagine that spread out among everything you buy in a year, so to replace the property tax revenue would be a very slight increase in sales tax.
This will take an amendment to the Texas State constitution, so that once we kill this monster, it will stay dead and never be resurrected.
Imagine the economic prosperity Texas would experience from eliminating property tax. Property tax is a hidden tax built into every product and service you buy. Most products you buy have been stored in a warehouse and then brought to a retail location on which property tax is paid, and built into the price of that product. Moreover all the employees that were involved must be paid enough to pay their property taxes (even if they rent) and that is built into the price of products and services as well. Property tax is a viscous cycle of hidden taxes!
If the Texas Legislature wants to truly deliver meaningful tax relief to Texans, they can do so by simply proposing a Constitutional amendment before the voters and give Texans the opportunity to vote on this!
Lets end property tax now!
James Scott Trimm
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