Property Taxes

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I45Tex
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Property Taxes

Postby I45Tex » 20 Feb 2019 15:25

After the Medical District Urban Development thread grew fat with debate about having taxing powers for hospital districts, I noticed that the new forum’s City Issues subforum doesn’t cover this topic now.

With the state’s property-tax-centric revenue model coming up for the Texas Legislature’s reconsideration this year, will we move toward something else or just try to use it to drive wedges between urban, rural, and suburban voter groups, as the school district tax system and its loopholes have been employed to do?

The subject of county-level tax authorities is distinct from that, not distinct enough to merit a totally independent comment chain, but we’ll have to see if nonexistent comment threading here will allow productive discussion if we’re bouncing back and forth at random.

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I45Tex
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Re: Property Taxes

Postby I45Tex » 20 Feb 2019 15:33

#county

To start off, anybody who would like to may download this PDF of the Galleria’s owner advertising to prospective investors that the asset is privately appraised at $606,000,000 in value. The DallasCAD value is less than $182 million (70% off) and if UBS’ flagship property fund, Trumbull Diversified, sent lawyers to contest a taxable valuation of $200 million as being unfairly high to them and present evidence to talk it down, I suppose nobody would bat an eye. Why do we fume at what we pay for county services and facilities but shrug this off as the name of the profit game? If we want the county to outfox them then it needs to have more resources to work with, not fewer.

https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazo ... .__UBS.pdf

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shelishhrpp12
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Re: Property Taxes

Postby shelishhrpp12 » 20 Jun 2022 15:23

I45Tex wrote:After the Medical District Urban Development thread grew fat with debate about having taxing powers for hospital districts, I noticed that the new forum’s City Issues subforum doesn’t cover this topic now.

With the state’s property-tax-centric revenue model coming up for the Texas Legislature’s reconsideration this year, will we move toward something else or just try to use it to drive wedges between urban, rural, and zameen blue world city suburban voter groups, as the school district tax system and its loopholes have been employed to do?

The subject of county-level tax authorities is distinct from that, not distinct enough to merit a totally independent comment chain, but we’ll have to see if nonexistent comment threading here will allow productive discussion if we’re bouncing back and forth at random.



Yes you are right. All these tax should be explained in this sub forum also.

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I45Tex
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Re: Property Taxes

Postby I45Tex » 22 Jun 2022 23:43

# county

In the case of the Galleria appraisal it doesn’t take great resources to spot the ploy Trumbull Diversified pulls between its line to the tax authority and its line to the investment community about a single selfsame piece of real property.

But to be consistent across the board in spotting more complicated ploys by individual or commercial taxpayers to cheat the other taxpayers in the county, there has to be enough staff with enough tools to lay out the necessary workload, complete the research and then make the case for a fairer appraisal of the asset.



# state

If you can’t even follow the sneaky money at the county level it is hard to make informed decisions about the state-level costs and benefits of state-level rules; to hold decision makers accountable for those effects; or even to prove when the decision makers’ rhetoric about a rule’s effects doesn’t match the actual effects & room for further improvement it has had.

These rules include policies about what not to tax, how much to tax overall, what to charge for each type of tax we will implement, and which taxes will fall foremost upon users of a particular service or infrastructure.

It takes taxes, unfortunately, to be able to have a supply of good county tax data. At least, a supply that can withstand challenge by sneaks, and in turn allow informed decisions by our citizenry about it* to also withstand further challenges by motivated sneaks.
* — taxable real estate property value would be just one of many cases in point.

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I45Tex
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Re: Property Taxes

Postby I45Tex » 10 Sep 2022 14:04

When we think of underused land in the metropolis, we often think of holdout owners who want tons of money when they're the last available lot for the densest possible project on a built-out block in the future.

But what about developers banking land for projects they're not in any hurry to get financed? Streetlights is not the worst offender in this regard.

Local property tax reform regarding any urban land *below* a minimum FAR which is not a homestead would make land less attractive an investment for all those who don't plan to commit.