The Texas Tribune by Ross Ramsey March 15, 2019
Texas voters told candidates they want property tax relief, and it's remarkably expensive. That's why state lawmakers are talking about higher sales taxes.In the rush of legislation filed before last week’s deadline, you wouldn’t be the only person who missed the measure proposing a 6.26 percent state sales tax rate. No reason you should have seen it or made note of it.
For one thing, it’s a teensy tax increase, at least on paper — at least for now. The state’s current sales tax rate is 6.25 percent, and local governments can add two cents on top of that rate. The increase to 6.26 percent is a placeholder in a proposed constitutional amendment — a place to put the real number when it’s available.
That number is in the possession of House Public Education Committee Chair Dan Huberty, R-Houston, who is talking to legislators about raising the state sales tax by a penny, to 7.25 percent (the new tax rate he’s waiting to propose), and pouring the money into public education. It wouldn’t be for new spending, but it would increase state spending enough to significantly lower local property taxes — the driving political force behind the state’s current legislative push for school finance reform.
A little change in your local property taxes, translated into statewide finance, takes a tremendous amount of money. But a 1-cent rate increase in sales taxes would produce a lot of money. The state collected $31.94 billion from sales taxes in the 2018 fiscal year, according to the Texas comptroller of public accounts; at that level of taxable sales, a 1-cent increase in the rate would bring in an extra $5.1 billion.
Local school districts, fueled by the local property taxes Texas voters hate so much, spent about $14.7 billion more than the state on public education in fiscal year 2018, according to the comptroller. The $5.1 billion from a 1-cent sales tax increase wouldn’t be enough to level that out, but it would sure make a dent.
More:
https://www.texastribune.org/2019/03/15/asking-texas-voters-swap-higher-sales-taxes-property-tax-cuts/