Attention Gov Perry You have lost my Vote

Well I have been waiting for my property appraisal hearing to be completed, and it was just this last week. So I can now start to look at what I am going to owe in property Taxes for next year. If we all remember what our esteemed Governor said after the last special session of the Texas Legislature, that he had just signed legislation that would provide homeowners a $2000 dollar property tax cut over the next three years. Well I have some numbers for Governor Perry to chew on, and maybe after the November elections come around and he has lost, or possibly barely won re-election he will know why he is in the situation he is in.

For starters, a couple of pieces of information for general consumption, I protested my appraisal value so I have 3 appraisals to work from 2005 , 2006 pre protest, 2006 post protest.

2005 $114,400
2006 pre protest $118,000
2006 post protest $105,000

so my base taxable value in $100 units is as follows
2005 1144
2006 pre 1180
2006 post 1050

My tax rates are as follows
Katy IDS 2.00
Harris County items with homestead exemptions available .64627
that rate with exemption applied is 0.517016
Harris county items with no homestead exemptions 1.13984

So I had with only the flat $15000 school district homestead exemption left a tax rate of $3.656856. Applying that to my tax bases and taking into account the School district exemption I paid around $3,883.44 in property taxes last year.

So going forward and working off of the assumption that the taxing entites are going to be happy staying at the appraisal cap trough I would be paying $3,991.49 in taxes this year if nothing changed other than my appraisal increase. that is a 2.75% increase in my taxes with no other action going on.

I however have been proactive and have protested my appraisal value and it has been reduced to $105,000 which is about a 11% decrease in my taxable value. With that in hand my taxes should be $3,642.16 which is a reduction of $241.28, simply because I was proactive, it will turn out to be the best $85 spent this year.

Now Governor Perry was so kind to sign into law a 12% M&O rate reduction for all school districts, Katy ISD's M&O rate was $1.63 so the new legislation will reduce it to $1.45 added with the $.37 Debt poriton of the school taxes my new tax rate is $1.8153 which is not bad, however if I had not protested my appraisal value my taxes would have been $3,824.87 a savings of all of $58.57 .

So where do I sit for this year? Well with a successfully protested appraisal value, include the fact that my MUD district will be reducing the tax rate by at least $.02 or more, and add on Governor Perry's legislation, I will be obligated to pay approximately $3,352.49 which is a savings of $530.96 which is a 16% reduction in the amount of taxes I will pay verus last year.

for your final evaluation here are the different numbers
2005 Taxes paid $3,883.44
2006 Taxes w/o HB3 or protest $3,991.49 difference +$108.05
2006 Taxes w/o protest w/HB3 $3,824.87 difference -$58.57
2006 Taxes w/o HB3 w/protest $ 3,642.16 difference -$241.28
2006 Taxes w HB3 and Protest $3,352.49** difference -$530.96

** Please note this is my best estimate, I will not know what my taxes are untill I get the statements from the respective entities.

So for those of you who say you cannot fight "city hall" with regards to property taxes you are wrong.... It just takes some time and being willing to get some help. These fine folks were the ones who handled my protest and it will be the best money I ever spent. They will have taken the meager savings of Governor Perry and increased it by almost 10 times. The sad thing is that unless meaningful appraisal reform is passed that savings as well as the other tax decrease that HB3 enacted will dissappear in 3 to 5 years. Governor Perry had a perfect opportunity to kill 2 birds with one piece of legislation what with the changes in school financing being required. He cold have very well pushed through a 5% appraisal cap but he chose instead to side with TML and Texas association of Counties and ignore the truth that property tax reform is only half done with out appraisal reform.

You can check my other posts here in the archive about the falicy of the $2000 tax savings.