The Texas legislature voted in the last session to provide property tax relief to ALL Texas residence owners, subject to voter approval in the November 3, 2015 election.
The tax relief is to be effected by increasing the residence homestead exemption from $15,000 to $25,000. The increased exemption will also be applied to frozen tax values, so if you are already 65, or disabled, and your taxes have been frozen, you also will realize a decrease in your taxes, as your tax bill will be recalculated using the new homestead exemption ($25,000 vs $15,000), and the reduction then applied to your frozen tax amount.
The proposition also prohibits cities or counties that have adopted the frozen taxes for the elderly and disabled from reducing or repealing the exemption. This means Georgetown will have to apply the $25,000 homestead exemption to those in the city that currently have their taxes frozen which will result in a reduction in taxes!
Of course all the city council has to do is raise the tax rate to recover those lost city revenues. But watch out for obtuse methods to be proposed to increase your taxes through all kinds of new fees.
The proposition will also permanently ban a tax on the sale of real estate (transfer tax) in Texas. This closes off another revenue source for our politicians to exploit as they have done in 36 other states!
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