Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan’s main property tax proposal unveiled Thursday calls for $17 billion in cuts and a stricter cap on how much school district taxes can go up each year — setting up a stark divide between the Texas Legislature’s two chambers on how to provide tax relief to property owners this session.
Under Phelan’s proposal — to be carried in the House by state Rep. Morgan Meyer, a Dallas Republican — the state would cut school district property taxes by 28%. For an owner of a $350,000 home, that would translate to more than $1,000 in savings on their tax bills over the next two years.
But the most controversial part of Phelan’s proposal is a plan to place a tighter cap on how much more school districts can tax property owners each year and expand the benefit, which currently benefits only homeowners, to include commercial property owners.
