COMPTROLLER RELEASES PROPERTY TAX REPORT
In December 2012, the Texas comptroller’s office published its biennial property tax report, which provides tax rate information that was collected by the comptroller’s office for tax years 2010 and 2011. The recent report contains a table that has been used in property tax reports in years past, but this time there’s an interesting twist:
Property Taxes Reported by Unit Type, 2009
Unit Type |
Number of Units 2009 |
Tax Levy in 2009 |
Percentage of Levy in 2009 |
School Districts |
1,025 |
$ 21,780,056,204 |
54.4 % |
Cities |
1,054 |
$ 6,593,755,037 |
16.5 % |
Counties |
254 |
$ 6,526,724,060 |
16.3 % |
Special Districts |
1,609 |
$ 5,133,820,497 |
12.8 % |
Total |
3,942 |
$40,034,355,798 |
100 % |
Source: Comptroller of Public Accounts, Annual Property Tax Report, Tax Year 2009
Property Taxes Reported by Unit Type, 2011
Unit Type |
Number of Units in 2011 |
Tax Levy in 2011 |
Percentage of Levy in 2011 |
School Districts |
1,024 |
$22,001,561,060 |
61.88 % |
Cities |
1,064 |
$ 6,810,049,306 |
19.15 % |
Counties |
254 |
$ 6,742,912,786 |
18.96 % |
Total |
2,342 |
$35,554,523,152 |
100 % |
Source: Comptroller of Public Accounts, Biennial Property Tax Report, Tax Years 2010 and 2011
Legislation passed last legislative session allows the comptroller to discontinue collecting information from special districts in order to cut costs associated with data collection and entry. As a result, the city share of the total tax “pie” appears to have grown significantly, when in fact it has not. An unfortunate side-effect of this cost-cutting at the state level will be that no state agency can accurately report on the total property tax levy anymore. Consequently, the cities’ share is now unknowable.
The entire Biennial Property Tax Report is available at
http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/proptax/references/survey-publications/biennial-report/2010-2011/96-1728.pdf.
