Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently signed an $18 billion tax cut for Texas property owners, and now the measure will go before Texas voters in November.
Texas has some of the highest property taxes in the country, with Texas lawmaker working feverishly this year to find common ground on a way to cut property taxes in the midst of one of Texas’ largest budget supluses.
This new law, if approved by Texas voters, will increase the homestead expemtion for homeowners from $40,000 to $100,000 as well as a temporary 20% appraisal cap on yearly value increase for non-homestead properties under $5 million of valuation. Also in the new law, there are some adjustments to the franchise tax that will benefit small businesses.
The appraisal cap and franchise tax changes will be a huge benefit to small businesses as they cannot have their appraisals increase more than 20% in one year although this measure is not retroactive so the high appraisal increases over the past few years will stay.
As for the franchise tax, two changes will occur. Small businesses will see the franchise threshold increase from one million to two million dollars and also those not meeting the threshold will no longer have to file any forms.
All of these changes will be on the ballot in November as one referendum and are certain to pass.
