Reality of property tax relief | What's Your Point?

There's been a lot of chatter lately regarding whether the billions in property tax relief generated by the state legislature was real and actually impacting Texans in a positive way. State Senator Paul Bettencourt, the architect of massive increases in school tax, homestead exemptions for Texas homeowners. Now, after crunching the numbers hard, Bettencourt generated this map illustrating that 60% of Texas homeowners over the age of 65 no longer pay any school tax. And in a huge swath of the state, the brown area on the map there, representing nearly 100 counties, not a single penny is paid by seniors to public schools as tax on their homesteads. Panel, for me, anyway, I'm not the sharpest knife in the book. Not the book, the drawer, right? The drawer. See what I mean? that seems like proof of performance how about you bill yeah i think that chart is actually uh over 65 plus disability exemptions this is the 60 but nonetheless it's very substantial we did we set up this program over baker that can run any property tax bill in the state and show you how much your school taxes came down versus how much your other taxes went up and so starting in 2022 when these reforms came into place, what you see is in the largest 20 taxing entities in the state, their average increase year over year was 8%. And so what they did was just soaked up everything that the state dropped the school taxes on. And that's why nobody believes they actually got any relief because their overall bill is about the same as it was before ours gone up slightly. The two entities that did not raise taxes? City of Houston. And Tarrant County. Go ahead. I think that the most important thing about this, this is where I think a lot of elected officials can't see the forest for the trees. Everybody looks at senior exemptions. Nobody talks about first-time homebuyers. I remember when my wife and I bought our first house together when I was 21 and she was 20. And we lived on fish sticks and macaroni and cheese for probably a good year or two while we started our careers. And I think that that's something that they completely miss. I love that we make it more affordable for seniors who are on a fixed income. But seniors also have high net worth. When you're talking about a first time home buyer, you are cash strapped and you have no net worth. And I think that's a very important thing that everybody ignores. And so if we're talking about enthusiasm at the polls, why people are and are not turning out, this is a reason why young people are really frustrated with the system. We still can't get Charles to buy a house. The homestead exemption for everyone went up to, what, from $70,000 to $140,000, so everybody got real property tax relief. I just think that these other entities, including Harris County primarily in this area, are soaking it all up. That's why they felt so comfortable doing it, thought they could skate by in a political year with a big downdraft for Republicans. Their bet is going to turn out for them. They're going to come up great in this election cycle, but I think it's going to hurt them in the next couple of years our folks in the neighborhoods cognizant that their their their school taxes have dropped no they have no idea but are they looking at this the highest bill they're still getting every day, and i still don't comprehend why people cannot look at the people who are taking your money making it their money and leaving you with no money what is wrong with y'all y'all need to look at this this is real this is not fake and i'm telling you prices are only going up they are not going down and when you look at that new tax bill that you got to pay come January, and you're trying to see where the hell you're going to come up with replacement for your subsidized health care if you're on the Affordable Care Act, because you ain't got that money no more, then y'all be saying, damn, why the hell did I vote for them? But you see, he lived on fish sticks and macaroni. We lived on ramen noodles and pot pies. Up next, kickbacks funded by unsuspecting Fort Bend County taxpayers. Federal prosecutors reveal the scheme that's likely to land yet another elected leader in prison.