AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Senate's property tax reduction proposal builds on years of efforts from lawmakers to bring down taxes by increasing homestead exemptions.

What You Need To Know

  • The Texas Senate on Tuesday unanimously approved a bill to cut property taxes

  • Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, said Senate Bill 4 will especially benefit older homeowners

  • The homestead exemption would be raised from $100,000 to $140,000

  • If the current Senate version is signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott, voters will still have to approve the tax cut during the next statewide election for it to go into effect

Just last session, the Legislature passed a property tax relief bill. They hope to decrease the cost of living for Texans. Voters also approved the bill.

“You have to ask yourself, when you add all of the cost of goods sold, the whole bread basket, and the auto insurance and everything else, how people are making it,” said Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio.

Charles Scoma with the Texas Silver Haired Legislature told senators that Texans 80 years old and up live off an average of $37,000 per year and still live in their own homes.

“They have to make judgment decisions as to whether they pay their insurance to maintain their home or they pay [the] cost of the food,” said Scoma.

Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, touted his bill, Senate Bill 4, to decrease property taxes, which he claims will especially benefit older homeowners.

“That does provide a huge savings of $363 for the average homestead,” said Bettencourt.

The number Bettencourt quoted is how much homeowners could save on taxes per year. The proposal increases the amount exempt from school district taxes from $100,000 to $140,000.

The Texas Senate budget set aside $3 billion to cover school districts' potential losses from the property tax cut.

“The state is picking up the tab on this. And that's one of the times when this doesn't, you know, cause a direct shift to other taxpayers,” said Bettencourt.

Some supporters asked senators to provide even more relief to be better in step with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's request of a $10 billion cut.

“The state is well positioned to offer an even larger measure of tax relief. As we all know, this session, lawmakers come in with a $24 billion general revenue related surplus,” said James Quintero with the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

While rental property owners aren’t eligible for the exemptions, Bettencourt told Spectrum News in a separate interview that there could still be benefits for renters.

“You get a tax cut, but you don't pass it to your renters, your renters have a tendency to leave, which is not good for people's occupancy. So actually it's a good time to have property tax relief that goes to commercial properties because when rents are falling, that's when it really passes straight through to the renters,” said Bettencourt.

If the current Senate version is signed into law by Abbott, voters will still have to approve the tax cut during the next statewide election for it to go into effect.