September 11, 2008 10:12 am
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Chelsea L. McGowan
cmcgowan@weatherforddemocrat.com
In a presentation to members of the East Parker County Chamber of Commerce, Texas State Representative Phil King said the property tax system is broken, and moving totally away from that system is the only hope for the state’s economy.
“Our property tax is a broken system,” he said. “It’s not just in Parker County, everywhere in the state is having terrible property tax growth.”
King went on to cite several statistics, saying Texas’ population is growing by 1,400 people per day, but the state is 45th in the nation in homeownership.
“That statistic threw me a little bit at first, but it makes sense if you think about it,” he said. “The average mortgage payment in Texas is 17 percent property taxes. People can’t afford that. For every thousand dollars you raise the price of a house in Texas, 38,000 families can no longer afford an entry-level mortgage.”
While King said he understood the upper-middle class of Parker County might not be feeling the property tax pinch yet, he also said communities as a whole will feel the impact when lower income families can no longer afford to live in the area.
“Who we’re pushing out of the housing market are lower-income families and young families, making it more and more difficult for them to buy their first starter home,” he said. “A property tax system is the only tax with no relationship to your ability to pay it. And that’s one of the reasons it just doesn’t work.”
As has recently been discussed in the Texas Legislature, King said he believes the hope for the Texas economy lies in moving away from a property tax-based system and toward a consumer tax.
“A property tax system was never meant to carry this big a burden,” he said. “Ultimately, the best thing to do is transfer the burden from property tax to sales tax. It’s easy to do, and it’s the best thing for our economy.”
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