Needed Legislation
Senator Eltife has filed SB402 which has a lot of potential but needs to be tweaked. It could give counties and cities another tool for revenue by allowing a local option election to add 1/4 cent of sales tax revenue, but would require it to go toward property tax reduction and provide a revenue cap of 5%.
For Smith County residents that means it would give us an additional 7 to 8 million per year and reduce the tax rate from about 29 cents to about 22 cents. Our county tax rate is already low, and according to one official the reduction would merely lower your annual tax bill on a home valued at $150,000 by about $100 per year. While it may not seem like your total tax bill is low, look at the Smith County part. Usually, the biggest culprit of a high tax bill is the school district. Smith County is blessed with one of the lowest tax rates of 254 counties in the State of Texas. As a matter of fact, we’re in the lowest 10 the last I checked.
We need another form of revenue… one that doesn’t penalize just property owners. We suffer from years of neglect to our county facilities, but while that type of thinking has changed in county government… we are still digging out of deep hole. Additional revenue that could go towards improvements instead of property tax reduction would allow us to have a tool that has been a huge benefit to the City of Tyler with it’s half-cent sales tax pay as you go projects. The city was even able to lower taxes because they had that tool.
Please contact your legislator and ask them to support an amended version of SB402 that would give Smith County this tool.
