It’s time for property tax bills to hit the mail, but the good news is Harris County isn’t ready (via KTRH-740):
Harris County residents won’t be seeing their property tax bills the first week in Novemeber because officials won’t be able to mail them on time.
“You’ll probably get the bills the week of Thanksgiving,” Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt told KTRH News. “The state law is real clear. You have to have listened to 95 percent of the total value protests, before the chief appraiser can take a roll from his appraisal review board.”
Bettencourt said that’s not possible yet, because “this year there’s been almost a quarter-million protests.”
Outstanding! And until the Lege does anything meaningful on an appraisal cap, boatloads of protests are the only way to get the attention of local appraisal boards. Make those boards earn every penny they are taking from hard working Texans.
Now, about that big property tax cut the Legislature and Governor Perry promised property owners:
Property owners shouldn’t be surprised if they don’t see the promised $2,000 property tax cut from Austin, Bettencourt said. The tax-cut figures, he said, are based on home sales, not appraisal numbers, and the cut may actually be so gradual that, for some, it will be a wash because of rising property values.
That figures.
