Why Texas’ Property Tax System Can Favor the Rich Twice: ‘This Situation Shifts the Tax Burden’

Texas is once again looking for ways to lower property taxes.On Sept. 15, the House Ways & Means Committee is scheduled to study how to build on property-tax relief enacted by the Legislature, while Gov. Greg Abbott is promoting an affordability agenda that he says would save the average homeowner roughly $3,000 a year in property taxes.But underneath the debate over how much Texans should pay is a thornier question: Who’s already carrying the burden?Texas has the seventh-most regressive state and local tax system in the nation, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP).Property taxes are one reason why. Texas families in the bottom 20% of earners pay an estimated 4.5% of their income in property taxes, while families in the top 1% pay just 2.7%.“You tend to ask a certain group of people, by that I mean lower and middle income households, to contribute larger shares of their income than wealthier households,” Neva Butkus, a senior analyst at ITEP, tells Realtor.com®.And while policy debate is focused on making the property-tax bill smaller, they may obscure the real problem: how fairly the bill is being divided in the first place.Gov. Abbott's office did...