San Antonio Standard

Texas Public Policy Foundation, an Austin-based think tank, released a February report showing that property tax increases for the most populous cities in Texas, including San Antonio, outpace the tax’s preferred growth rate. The preferred rate of growth is based on two numbers, a city’s population growth plus the inflation rate.

"It’s not a stretch to say that property taxes are out of control in the Lone Star State,” James Quintero wrote in a newsletter on March 3 as the Policy Director at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “As a result, local governments are getting rich while families are forced to make hard decisions."

The think tank report notes that Texas property taxes are “the largest tax assessed” in the state, according to a 2020 Texas Comptroller document. With 4,256 separate property taxing units in Texas in the fiscal year of 2019, approximately 50 percent of all tax dollars collected in the state come from property taxes. "The laws and systems surrounding Texas’ property tax are notoriously complicated, oftentimes requiring a taxpayer to seek help through consultants, accountants, advocates, and attorneys," the report claims.

“The 10 Worst States for Property Taxes,” according to The Balance, lists Texas at number 10 as the only southern state. The median property tax payment of $4,065 per year in Texas is dwarfed by New Jersey’s median property tax rate, which tops the list at $8,999. Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, and Illinois round out the top 5 states on the list.

The Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C. based think tank that monitors state and federal tax policy and government spending, found that Texas had the sixth highest property tax rate in the country. New Jersey, Illinois, and New Hampshire also top this list, which was created by measuring property taxes paid as a percentage of owner-occupied housing value in 2019.

States like Texas and New Hampshire have relatively high property taxes because local governments often rely heavily on them for revenues to fund town and county services because individuals don’t pay income taxes. New Jersey, New York, and Illinois levy high property tax rates and relatively high taxes in other categories of taxation, like individual income and automobile taxes.

Between 2016 and 2020 property tax rates in San Antonio increased by 38.2 percent, from $554.6 million to $766.2 million, according to the Texas Public Policy Foundation report. The combined population and inflation for the city grew by 4.3 percent during that time, which created a difference of 33.9 percent increase. San Antonio ranks near the middle of the scale. Laredo is at the bottom with 15.6 percent difference and Austin ranks number one with a 59.5 percent difference, showing a worsening taxpayer burden in that city compared to all other population centers in Texas.

The populations of Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, El Paso, Arlington, Corpus Christi, Plano, and Laredo shrank between 2016 and 2020.