The growth of municipal property taxes has steadily increased over the past twenty years, fast outpacing population and inflation growth. Although the Texas Legislature has provided cities with a tool to lessen the tax burden on residents — allowing cities to exempt up to 20 percent or $5,000 of the value of a homestead residence from municipal taxation — many cities have not yet made use of this permissive tool. Thus, the following ordinance gives practical effect to the Legislature’s homestead exemption.
Texas DOGE Roars to Life
Nearly one year ago, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law Senate Bill 14 in an effort to “slash regulations, put stricter standards on new regulations that could be costly to businesses, and put a check on the growth of the administrative state.” All worthy goals too considering the Lone Star State’s cumbersome regulatory environment, which recently ranked “as the fifth most-regulated…in the nation, after California,...