Once again, the Texas Legislature is entering the final stretch of its session and, once again, Republicans’ high-profile promise to deliver property tax cuts to the landed masses still hangs in the balance.
In 2023, the two chambers squabbled over differing approaches to providing such relief—tax compression for the House and increasing the homestead exemption in the Senate—before, after two special sessions, finally striking a $13 billion deal. About $7 billion was used by the state to effectively buy down local school districts’ property tax rates, while almost $6 billion more was dedicated to increasing the tax-free threshold for home values from $40,000 to $100,000.
That deal was marketed by Republican state leaders as historic relief for struggling homeowners (and just in time for the 2024 elections, no less). While the cuts successfully lowered property tax bills for most homeowners in 2023, many saw those savings wash away the following year with soaring property values in the state’s booming housing market.
