The office that oversees tax breaks and property values in Travis County is now beginning to come into compliance with a 2023 law requiring counties to check homeowners’ claims to tax exemptions.
Senate Bill 1801, which became law last year, requires central appraisal districts throughout the state to review homeowners’ claims to property tax exemptions. They must do these reviews every five years.
Exemptions let homeowners subtract a portion of their home values from the amount that is taxed by cities, counties and other entities that collect taxes. The most common is what’s called a homestead exemption, where someone receives a tax break for living in the home they own.
In early November, the Travis Central Appraisal District began mailing notices out to roughly 18,000 homeowners who, according to property documents, may no longer qualify for a homestead exemption. This was the first batch of notifications. The office will send them out in phases and is starting with homeowners who first claimed exemptions between 1970 and 2009.
Homeowners who receive this notice will be asked to either upload online or bring in person a copy of their driver’s license as proof of their current primary address.
Homeowners potentially not in compliance will receive several notices before the appraisal district removes the tax break from their property, said Cynthia Martinez, chief strategy officer at TCAD.
“It’s going to be several months before we say, ‘OK, you no longer qualify and we’re going to remove your exemption,” Martinez said.
Property tax breaks can often make a substantial difference in bills; according to data from TCAD, the average difference in a property tax bill between a homeowner who has a general homestead exemption and one who doesn’t is $1,876 a year.
Appraisal districts have had the right to investigate anyone they believed was wrongly claiming a property tax exemption. Some politicians have been caught claiming more than one home as their primary residence. This new law goes further by requiring a periodic review of homeowners’ eligibility for tax breaks.
Lawmakers who support the law hope it will force counties to more proactively flag people who no longer qualify and consequently bring in additional taxes. According to an analysis of the bill at the time legislators were discussing it, 17 counties had recouped $4 billion in taxes after removing owners falsely claiming exemptions.
“Everybody pays their fair share,” State Sen. Drew Springer, who represents a district northwest of Dallas, said.
Other counties in Central Texas have already started removing exemptions for people they have found no longer qualify. Alvin Lankford, the chief appraiser in Williamson County, said the appraisal district north of Austin had removed tax breaks on 990 properties out of a total of 210,000 homes where people had claimed a tax break because they said it was their primary residence.
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