GW Fulce in Houston Chronicle: End the property tax in Texas? Tell me what you’ll cut first. | Opinion

If politicians were serious about tax relief, they’d reducing spending. Otherwise, the math just doesn’t work. 

by Garrett W. Fulce

Oct 21, 2025

While rumors swirl that Gov. Greg Abbott might call the Legislature back to Austin to tackle property tax reform, there’s no expectation that they’d be successful if he did. After 200 days of stuffy committees and roll-call posturing failed to produce real movement on this issue earlier this year, why expect a different result with a third 30-day session? 

With primaries and filing deadlines looming, voters need to press all candidates at every level to drop the "end property tax" sloganeering. We need them to get specific on what spending to cut and how they'd fix a broken tax system that’s strangling homeowners and killing Texas’ future.

Candidates love to promise to “eliminate” property tax on the campaign trail because that fires up their base. But even the dimmest politician knows the ultimate sacrament in Austin is spending someone else’s money — and the taxes the state politicians thunder about cutting don’t go to the state of Texas, but to local governments.

Property taxes fund cities, schools, counties and boards you’ve never heard of. Killing the property tax would destroy the budgets of every local government in Texas and enrage every group whose paychecks depend on those taxes, from police unions to the teachers’ lounge. 

The same folks cheering at campaign rallies would riot when their favorite departments disappeared.

Anyone who doubts that should take a look in the rearview mirror. Texas has run this experiment. Twice.

In 1947, the Legislature passed the first restrictions on a statewide property tax. Fourteen years later, running low on revenue, it created a new levy — the first general sales tax. That new tax pulled in $149 million. 

In 1982, voters killed the statewide property tax altogether, but left it alive for local governments. Again, shrinking the tax in one place made it grow in another. By 1990, lawmakers had increased the sales tax rate by more than 50% from four percent in 1982 to six-and-a-quarter percent.This November, voters will decide whether to ban some types of taxes we don’t even have, like capital gains. (We did this in 2019 with non-existent state income taxes, too.)

But every “ban” ends the same way. Like a parishioner who gives up meat for Lent only to gorge on cheese, Austin swears off one tax and fattens another.

The fewer taxes Austin allows, the more state and local governments will have to lean on the two big ones left standing: property and sales. Instead of shrinking government, these so-called "elimination" plans just end up moving money around. The state brags about lowering your property tax, but uses the sales-tax windfall to pay for it. That’s not even robbing Peter to pay Paul, it's robbing Peter to pay Peter.

In theory, voters can rein in local tax rates at the ballot box. In reality, the culprit is often rising appraisals, which mean that even the most “no-rate-increase” cities and counties have more of your money to spend.

If politicians were serious about tax relief, they’d cut spending. Otherwise, the math just doesn’t work. 

But saying no to the interest groups that back their campaigns doesn’t fill campaign coffers. So they’ll complain about other politicians spending your money but forget to mention that they did the same exact thing.

Until politicians are brave enough to make cuts, we can at least limit the damage and move the burden off of homeowners.

We can do that by ending the taxation of buildings and improvements and just taxing the land underneath for everybody. Developers who sit on property should pay the same as the family that lives nearby. Businesses should pay the same as their customers. No more sweetheart deals.

This allows people to improve their homes without fear of long-term tax implications, while also incentivizing landowners and landlords to develop or offload underutilized properties. Land in desirable areas will inevitably be worth more, regardless of the structure on it, and necessary churn and land optimization can still occur.

Conservative icon and economist Milton Friedman called the land-value property tax the “least bad” tax. He was right. Maybe Austin can finally do the least bad thing and fix the broken system it created.

Garrett W. Fulce is a Republican political strategist based in Sugar Land. He is a Young Voices contributor and hosts Seeing Red, a Texas politics podcast.