According to KUT News, Texas has the seventh-highest property taxes rate in the country — a sore spot for homeowners.
Lawmakers, both Democrat and Republican, worked to address the issue during the 2025 legislative session by increasing the homestead exemption.
Last November, voters approved an additional $40,000 to the homestead exemption, while citizens with disabilities or over the age of 65 will get an additional $60,000.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has proposed a five-part plan that includes the elimination of school district property taxes.
James Quintero is a policy director at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. He says property values are a big issue.
"We have a lot of research at texaspolicy.com that shows values are way, way up and local governments have not done well to lower rates in response to those values. Very often what they do is they blame the value increases for your tax bill hikes and try to blame shift a lot of the problem. And I think it's very disingenuous."
Quintero talked about some ways to eliminate school taxes, which are the largest portion of a tax bill.
"So the way they're going to go about eliminating this tax is through a combination of compressing rates, which is just a fancy way of the state stepping in and telling school districts, 'You have to lower your rates, and to make you whole, we'll come in over the top and provide you some state financial assistance.' So, they're shifting the burden onto state finance in that way."
He said the other approach is to increase the homestead exemption to some high value. The exemption is where a portion of the value of one's home and property is taken off the tax roll.
