It’s the Wrong Time for Tax Hikes
https://www.texaspolicy.com/its-the-wron...-for-tax-hikes/
By James Quintero, Melissa Ford
|September 2, 2022

Former President Barack Obama once proclaimed that: “The last thing you want to do is raise taxes in the middle of the recession because that would just suck up and take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.” Like a broken clock, he got that one right.

Raising taxes in a recession is the last thing that any government should do. That’s why the Texas Public Policy Foundation has just launched a new Local Government Property Tax Tracker, which aims to track and identify local governments in Texas that are hiking taxes on homeowners. Something like this is very much needed given all the misinformation around tax rates, valuations, and who bear responsibility for the government largesse.

Here’s a preview:



Over time, this list will grow (side note: there are almost 5,000 local governments, so we won’t be able to get them all on our own so feel free to send us any that should be added to the list); but the real goal of this effort to call attention to the need for serious property tax reform that doesn’t allow the current misinformation environment to carry on. Because the truth is, while local officials are playing shell games with rates and values, real people are being hurt.

Stories of Texans getting crushed by taxes are everywhere. “I don’t have money to pay so much, my property tax has almost tripled,” said Reymundo Garcia from El Paso. “If someone doesn’t have enough money to pay, they’re going to lose their property.”

Garcia is only one of many Texans worried about losing their properties. Lola Rodriguez inherited a house that has been in her family for 70 years.-- excerpt, rest at link above --