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As a boomer (1957), I’m in the cohort that now enjoys some pretty good discounts on their property taxes. I feel like we earned it after paying full freight for 40 years. Texas has recently increased exemptions for all homeowners, so most people have benefited and the governor is campaigning on a platform of greatly reducing or even eliminating property taxes, as is Florida’s governor DeSantis. I have no beef with the idea, although in Texas property taxes are exclusively local — the state doesn’t tax property. I’m not sure how public schools can be funded with no property taxes or income tax. The state comptroller estimates it would take a $.22 sales tax to fund public schools at the current rate. For most of us in unincorporated areas, school taxes are the bulk of our property taxes; for us the rates (per hundred dollar valuation) are .9328 (school district), .377 (county) and .0005 (groundwater district). City residents pay an extra .4716 to live in the city.
Here is the recent fracas: since DeSantis’s announcement, X is full of Gen/Millennial/Gen Z posters arguing that, in fact, senior citizens should not get any property tax breaks. It just keeps us in our homes and we should be forced to downsize. Now, if you are on X, raging about boomers is quite the spectator sport already, but this seems to have turbocharged the boomer haters.
Some examples:
This is pretty much par for the course. Right now I’m just going to order up more popcorn and enjoy the show.
Discussion (108)
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Those of us that live in some Texas cities have half of our local properties sent to other cities in a share the wealth system called "recapture". I pay $20,000/year in property taxes and the lions share goes to schools and half of that is schools 500 miles away. Doesn't feel good, consider how crappy schools are these days.
Our longtime governor, Greg Abbott, has announced he is running, again. He has all kinds of ideas about cutting property taxes (for home owners, not landlords or businesses). I am interested in seeing the details and if Dan Patrick (the Lt. Governor who has all the legislative power) agrees.
As for Boomers, a 65,000,000 strong cohort is going to have all kinds of unintentional distortion in the economy. Hard to blame someone for that. The 70 year old hippies is a too much though.
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The whole recapture thing is incredibly complicated. We still call districts subject to recapture Chapter 41 districts, even though that chapter of the education code doesn’t cover it any more. The legislature went through I don’t know how many systems trying to satisfy federal judges; this one has lasted the longest. Some districts (like our local) are subject to recapture but don’t quite meet the conditions to have to send money away.
I hadn’t really thought about it before but that program works as a de facto state property tax, since you are sending your money to another local taxing entity.
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Um, what?!??
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That's. easy. Until 20 years ago I lived in Virginia and I had 2 houses, one was rented. That rented one I still own and the annual property tax today is $9,400. if I still lived in the one I sold the property tax on it would be around $15,000.
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This is why we shouldn't have publicly funded education. Not just K-12, but higher ed as well.
You could have communities set up a non-profit school for the locals, but it should still be paid for by the parents of the students. Otherwise, the focus should be on private, parochial and home schooling.
The big universities should be broken up. You can have a smattering of small, liberal art colleges. Otherwise, the professions (healthcare, engineering, etc.) should be treated as trades and run like trade schools.
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