Last night, midnight, all bills that failed to get a “second reading” on the House floor, were killed. That included all bills (except one) filed for Property Tax Relief.
No surprise, (see the post I wrote a month ago, “The Battle for Property Tax Relief and Reform is Lost”) we are left with the Big Three’s little darlings, SB2/HB2 (the so-called, CAP bills). Fortunately, their sales tax charade failed to pass. That’s the only reason one Relief bill survived.
That one, and only, “Relief” bill was Rep. Murr’s (HB297). It purports to replace School M&O with sales tax. But guess what? It won’t actually do anything.
First, any implementation is delayed until 2022 and second, “Murr has indicated that the bill is not so much a promise to eliminate the school property tax in three years as it is to start a meaningful conversation about the feasibility of replacing property tax revenue with sales tax revenue as a main source of funding for schools.” – Julie Chang, Statesman.com
Senator Hall’s bill (SB29) to Eliminate Taxpayer-Funded Lobbyists, passed in the Senate, was sent by the House State Affairs to the Calendars Committee. It will, most likely, be up to a week before we know if it will go to the House floor or be “tagged” and die in that committee.
What does SB29 have to do with Eliminating Property Tax? Everything.
In the last legislative session, the Texas Municipal League hired 13 Taxpayer-Funded Lobbyists to assure your property taxes would go nowhere… except UP!
What do we do now?
We prepare, right now, for the next session. Our solution, Eliminate Property Tax, is still the best. We still have legislators interested in discussing it after this session. And nothing else will emancipate us and restore our inalienable right to own our property until we do.
Continue to make your voice heard. Continue to send the message, relentlessly, to every Legislator and Executive.
And tell them, there is only one acceptable outcome:
No Relief. No Reform. #EliminatePropertyTax