Bill: HB 74, 85(1) - 2017

Committee

House Ways and Means

Vote Recommendation

Vote Recommendation Economic Freedom Property Rights Personal Responsibility Limited Government Individual Liberty
No Neutral Neutral Neutral Negative Neutral

Author(s)

Scott Cosper

Bill Caption

Relating to the applicability of the law governing the provision of state aid to certain local governments disproportionately affected by the granting of ad valorem tax relief to disabled veterans.

Fiscal Notes

From LBB: No significant fiscal implication to the State is anticipated. 

Bill Analysis

HB 74 would amend the Local Government Code to include a county adjacent to a county with a U.S. military installation wholly or partly located in it in the definition of “local government” for the purpose of state aid to certain local governments disproportionately affected by granting property tax relief to disabled veterans. The revised definition would also apply to a municipality wholly or partly located in such a county.

Vote Recommendation Notes

This legislation is under consideration because so many special tax exemptions have been passed in previous sessions that some counties, particularly those with high populations of military veterans who have been the beneficiaries of many of these exemptions, are now having major budget problems. The unintended consequence of these exemptions has been to crash county budgets and now those counties want their budgets back-filled with state subsidies - essentially requiring other counties to make up for their tax losses. 

When we oppose special tax carveouts for veterans or other preferred classes, and when we talk about carveouts causing unintended consequences, this is exactly the kind of thing we are warning about. Unintended consequences are not a phantom theoretical possibility; they are real and inevitable, which is the reason we advocate for a tax system that is low rate, broad based, and fair to all taxpayers without picking winners and losers. 

We oppose HB 74 because Texans from the rest of the counties in the state should not be required to shoulder the tax burden for counties that have budget problems caused by special tax exemptions created by the legislature. The way to fix this problem is not to put the tax burden for these budget shortfalls on the rest of the state, it is rather to get rid of all special exemptions and reduce taxes across the board for all taxpayers. 


Source URL (retrieved on 03/28/2024 05:03 PM): http://reports.texasaction.com/bill/85s1/hb74?print_view=true