Property Taxes
The next time you walk into Lowe’s and they ask if they can help you, you might say, “Yeah, pay your fair share.” Big-box retailers are trying a new-fangled strategy to lower their property taxes, and in some states, it is working. It’s called the “dark-store” strategy, borrowing a commercial real estate term that means…
Hooboy. I’ve gotten some heated emails about the Dallas Independent School District’s announcement that it would be asking voters for a 13-cent increase in property taxes come November. And I get it. But I also think that many of the folks that emailed me, or that I’ve seen railing against it on social media, have…
Dallas County’s top elected official has heard your sobs as you opened your recent property tax appraisal notices and he wants to do something about the real financial pinch felt by many of the 525,000 county property owners who saw shocking increases this year. “What I’m proposing is that we capture the money that was…
Update, 4:09 pm: there IS a good, well, a very bad reason why John Ames had such a low appraisal: his home burned down! Details coming up. I love our Dallas County Tax Assessor John R. Ames, I really do. I’ve met him, I voted for him, just love the guy. I think he’s doing…
Several weeks ago I wrote a pair of columns (here and here) about how the core math of Texas property taxes is fundamentally broken (and always has been). While, A+B=C, if “A” is patently wrong, how can “B” and “C” be accurate? In this case, “A” is assessed property value, “B” is property tax rate and “C”…
