Like a designer outlet store holding a liquidation sale for all its merchandise, the Texas Comptroller’s office has had a constant crowd of corporate customers forming a line out the door, eager to get their high-end property tax deals rung up at the register before the sale ends and the store closes for good.
This was set in motion last year when the state legislature declined to renew Texas’ largest and most lucrative corporate tax incentive program known as Chapter 313, which is administered by the state comptroller. Despite boosters’ best attempts, too many lawmakers could no longer stomach the brazen bilking and ballooning costs of this tax giveaway scheme. The program, which allowed school districts to give companies 10-year breaks on property taxes for building new industrial projects—with the state ultimately picking up the tab—had become a subsidy taken for granted by corporations instead of a genuine incentive to invest in Texas.
Come December 31, 2022, the law that had allowed Big Bidness to keep more than $10 billion in school property tax revenue off the ledgers over two decades will be no more. But companies wasted little time grieving. There was still plenty of life to live after the session ended sine die.
