McLennan County Appraisal district

13,547 Views | 135 Replies | Last: 2 yr ago by itsyourboypookie
Layne Staley
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Tow truck drivers are worse.
TRADUCTOR
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Take a walk...and he will tax your feet: Tax Man
taxpreparer
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HTownAg98 said:

taxpreparer said:

Property valuation should be frozen at the its value when it was purchased. Let the elected politicians change the rate as needed, instead of an unelected person (or person) decide what they think it is worth. what we have now is the equivalent of taxing unrealized gains.

California has done this, and look what happened to them.
I am not saying freeze taxes, just the valuation. Make the elected officials own the tax increases. As it is now, they can brag about reducing tax rates while the actual taxes we pay increases.


edit: fixed typo
***It's your money, not theIRS! (At least for a little while longer.)
taxpreparer
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Tex100 said:

taxpreparer said:

Property valuation should be frozen at the its value when it was purchased. Let the elected politicians change the rate as needed, instead of an unelected person (or person) decide what they think it is worth. what we have now is the equivalent of taxing unrealized gains.
Yeah, but it isn't an income tax. It is a valuation tax.
So, when has a wealth tax ever been acceptable?
***It's your money, not theIRS! (At least for a little while longer.)
Owlagdad
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Spotted Ag said:

EMY92 said:

In McLennan Co, the house next to mine sold for twice my appraised vaiue a few months ago. The house 2 doors down sold for 2.5 times my appraised value a few weeks ago.

I'm just grateful for the cap on rate increases with the homestead exemption.
Ridiculous. Thing that pisses me off the most is they try to compare my house to houses on the other side of the county in urban areas. Houses 20 miles away from mine that are on city water and sewer, have paved roads, and are in large neighborhoods are "comparables". My home and property is none of those things.
One thing city of Tyler does is they voted in a small sales tax hike, and when they got enough money in the bank-- they pay cash for streets and repairs.
ag09
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Careful OP, guy that runs it is a good Ag and I believe he's on here. He's good people too.
EMY92
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Spotted Ag said:

EMY92 said:

In McLennan Co, the house next to mine sold for twice my appraised vaiue a few months ago. The house 2 doors down sold for 2.5 times my appraised value a few weeks ago.

I'm just grateful for the cap on rate increases with the homestead exemption.
Ridiculous. Thing that pisses me off the most is they try to compare my house to houses on the other side of the county in urban areas. Houses 20 miles away from mine that are on city water and sewer, have paved roads, and are in large neighborhoods are "comparables". My home and property is none of those things.
Not all of us city folk have city sewer, although the house 2 doors down from me does.
Jeeper79
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BQ78 said:

I thought there was a max of 30% or something they could be raised in a single year. He needs to protest.
I don't think property value increases are capped. Only the applicable tax increase.
I bleed maroon
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Spotted Ag said:

These *******s deserve to be put under the jail. Bunch of damn thieves is all they are. How ANY person with any self respect could choose to do work for an appraisal district is beyond me. They are the lowest of the low. Slime in the ice machine. Streaks in the toilet bowl. Dirtier than a homeless dude's underwear. Seriously, they can screw the hell right off.
My favorite Palestinian Jew might disagree with you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharisee_and_the_Publican
Jeeper79
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taxpreparer said:

HTownAg98 said:

taxpreparer said:

Property valuation should be frozen at the its value when it was purchased. Let the elected politicians change the rate as needed, instead of an unelected person (or person) decide what they think it is worth. what we have now is the equivalent of taxing unrealized gains.

California has done this, and look what happened to them.
I am not saying freeze taxes, just the valuation. Make the elected officials own the tax increases. As it is now, they can brag about reducing tax rates while the actual taxes we pay increases.


edit: fixed typo
Its a interesting idea but I wonder what that would do to home sales volume, and then what that would in turn do to home prices.
YouBet
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BQ78 said:

I thought there was a max of 30% or something they could be raised in a single year. He needs to protest.
I had to have this explained to me just last week because it's confusing and it's not explained well anywhere. Your appraisal value can go up however much it goes up, but the actual tax amount increase you will pay against that is capped at 10% per year. Thus, if your appraisal has increased by huge leaps, like is happening right now, your tax amount increase will cap at 10% but will keep increasing at 10% every year until it catches the appraisal number.

Exception:
"if that reappraisal occurred two years ago, your new assessed value can exceed last year's by 20%." I infer this quote to mean that you can take multiples of 10% tax increases for each year there hasn't been an appraisal done, but I'm not sure if that is correct because I've only found the 2 year lapse example. I'm just not sure why there would not be an appraisal done for longer than 2 years back.
aggrad02
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taxpreparer said:

HTownAg98 said:

taxpreparer said:

Property valuation should be frozen at the its value when it was purchased. Let the elected politicians change the rate as needed, instead of an unelected person (or person) decide what they think it is worth. what we have now is the equivalent of taxing unrealized gains.

California has done this, and look what happened to them.
I am not saying freeze taxes, just the valuation. Make the elected officials own the tax increases. As it is now, they can brag about reducing tax rates while the actual taxes we pay increases.


edit: fixed typo


That is what Cali has done and it's a mess. Unintended consequences are that people who have lived at a property for a longer time can't down grade ( or upgrade) because they cannot afford the new taxes at the new valuations if they moved. It stifles the market and causes inefficiencies.

Older business also pay a small amount of taxes compared to new businesses, this makes it hard for new businesses to compete stifling the free market. (For example Disney in Orange County is still paying property tax at 1970's valuations plus some modest increase that is a fraction of real value).

Finally tax revenue for municipalities is stifled if no one moves in that municipality, overtime with inflation this is going to cause a reduction of services in that area compared to newer areas, hurting the homeowners.

It causes extreme market inefficiencies, one of the reasons Cali is so expensive on top of a thousand other reasons due to stupid policy.

Here is example: When I lived in OC and rented, the homeowner bought the house new in the early 80's I think for around 100K, by 2021 I think her tax valuation had legally been raised to around $200k, the home if put on the market would have sold for around $1 million.
c-jags
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Ellis Wyatt said:

c-jags said:

Ellis Wyatt said:

I saw that they announced last week to expect appraised values to rise 30% this year. I'm guessing you have received a notice.
in Bell County they've gone really insane in most of Belton and West Temple. some people with 100-200% increases. i think they had people from Travis and Williamson county come do them.

somehow they have my property value at 30% of what our real estate appraisal actually is so i'm just minding my business and keeping a low profile over in east Bell county..
Oh, yeah. One of my buddies in rural Salado also got hammered. I live a little west of y'all. The whole area has seen huge increases.

I wouldn't have even typed that last part out...
we've been in a weird spot. i know you know the area, so this should make sense.

we're right outside of the historic district in Temple, but the nicest, largest house on that street. so our property taxes have reflected that for a while. bought for $100k right after the market fell out. had it appraised a few times when we thought about selling and the private appraisals were $150-180k. This entire time my CAD appraisal has been 60-75k.

they finally jumped up in 2020 a bit to $110, but still probably 3/5 of what we could have sold the house for. then we decided to remodel instead of moving and the appraisal afterwards is $300k.

then they mysteriously dropped our appraisal to $83k. after the remodel. my guess is they did the evaluation while we were in the remodel. probably won't be the way this year.
Spotted Ag
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The easiest thing to do would be to apply a sales tax on the purchase of property. Property should be no different than any other purchased item. But then the state and counties would not get as much money and they would actually have to budget responsibly, and we can't have that now, can we?

Lived at my property for 10 years and and have paid at least 30% of it's sales price in taxes. And it's worse for long time landowners. They've paid more in taxes than they did for the property. Annual property taxes should be eliminated completely. Institute a 15% sales tax. If you've paid 15% of your property's original value while you owned it then no more taxes for you. If you haven't reached the 15% yet then you pay off what you owe.
Covidians, Communists, CNN, FOX, and all other MSM are enemies of the state and should be treated as such.
YouBet
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This thread is why I asked the folks at The Texan to do an in depth article on this topic. There are multiple ways to do this but there are so many pros and cons and unintended consequences that no one really knows what the hell will really happen if we change it.

It seems like the right solution is some kind of hybrid model leveraging a capped property tax idea + sales tax idea, but who the hell knows.
agAngeldad
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YouBet said:

This thread is why I asked the folks at The Texan to do an in depth article on this topic. There are multiple ways to do this but there are so many pros and cons and unintended consequences that no one really knows what the hell will really happen if we change it.

It seems like the right solution is some kind of hybrid model leveraging a capped property tax idea + sales tax idea, but who the hell knows.
This is a good compromise.

One of my problems with property tax is that is assumes, "Single Family". However with max influx of different cultures, many families live in one house intended for "Single Family". Now the system is broke in that one family pays more than a cluster family for not only city but Schools which are the bigger impact..... We need a new system or rmixed system to pay for schools...
aggrad02
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YouBet said:

This thread is why I asked the folks at The Texan to do an in depth article on this topic. There are multiple ways to do this but there are so many pros and cons and unintended consequences that no one really knows what the hell will really happen if we change it.

It seems like the right solution is some kind of hybrid model leveraging a capped property tax idea + sales tax idea, but who the hell knows.


This is what Debra Medina ran on in 2012. It was a good idea.

https://amp.statesman.com/amp/9788969007

" The Texas Public Policy Foundation study found that an average sales tax rate of 14.5 percent could raise enough to equal all the property and sales tax collections without changing what is now taxed. Applying the tax to more services and to real estate sales would allow a lower tax rate of 9 percent."
TxTarpon
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"The appraisal districts is a bunch of power hungry amateurs. The REAL power hungry alpha dogs are in the DA's office."----Former McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna*





*this is a made up quote. AR probably thought this in his head at one time, but never said it.
----------------------------------
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BurnetAggie99
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File a Form 50-132 Notice of Protest (PDF) with the ARB. In most cases, you have until May 15 or 30 days from the date the appraisal district notice is delivered or whichever date is later.
SociallyConditionedAg
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baron_von_awesome said:

taxpreparer said:

Property valuation should be frozen at the its value when it was purchased. Let the elected politicians change the rate as needed, instead of an unelected person (or person) decide what they think it is worth. what we have now is the equivalent of taxing unrealized gains.
Or switch to sales tax

I was about to say the same.
TXAGFAN
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Spotted Ag said:

These *******s deserve to be put under the jail. Bunch of damn thieves is all they are. How ANY person with any self respect could choose to do work for an appraisal district is beyond me. They are the lowest of the low. Slime in the ice machine. Streaks in the toilet bowl. Dirtier than a homeless dude's underwear. Seriously, they can screw the hell right off.
Missed all the market appreciation the last year I guess? They're just doing their jobs and property taxes are the mechanism by which we fund our local govts in Texas. They experienced inflation and need more money to pay for school districts (yes those "groomers" have to be paid), city services, etc.

Republicans have been in charge for decades and the guy who ran against Abbott in primary said he wanted to change it. He lost.
DrEvazanPhD
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TXAGFAN said:

Spotted Ag said:

These *******s deserve to be put under the jail. Bunch of damn thieves is all they are. How ANY person with any self respect could choose to do work for an appraisal district is beyond me. They are the lowest of the low. Slime in the ice machine. Streaks in the toilet bowl. Dirtier than a homeless dude's underwear. Seriously, they can screw the hell right off.
Missed all the market appreciation the last year I guess? They're just doing their jobs and property taxes are the mechanism by which we fund our local govts in Texas. They experienced inflation and need more money to pay for school districts (yes those "groomers" have to be paid), city services, etc.

Republicans have been in charge for decades and the guy who ran against Abbott in primary said he wanted to change it. He lost.


Maybe local municipalities should spend less
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TXAGFAN
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SoupNazi2001 said:

TXAGFAN said:

Spotted Ag said:

These *******s deserve to be put under the jail. Bunch of damn thieves is all they are. How ANY person with any self respect could choose to do work for an appraisal district is beyond me. They are the lowest of the low. Slime in the ice machine. Streaks in the toilet bowl. Dirtier than a homeless dude's underwear. Seriously, they can screw the hell right off.
Missed all the market appreciation the last year I guess? They're just doing their jobs and property taxes are the mechanism by which we fund our local govts in Texas. They experienced inflation and need more money to pay for school districts (yes those "groomers" have to be paid), city services, etc.

Republicans have been in charge for decades and the guy who ran against Abbott in primary said he wanted to change it. He lost.


We should not charge taxes on unrealized gains which is what property taxes do.
Disagree, you're conflating property tax with income tax.
TriAg2010
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taxpreparer said:

Tex100 said:

taxpreparer said:

Property valuation should be frozen at the its value when it was purchased. Let the elected politicians change the rate as needed, instead of an unelected person (or person) decide what they think it is worth. what we have now is the equivalent of taxing unrealized gains.
Yeah, but it isn't an income tax. It is a valuation tax.
So, when has a wealth tax ever been acceptable?


Property taxes aren't a wealth tax if that is the point you're making.
Houstonag
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Do not rely on the appeal to the board. At best you will get some token decrease if at all. The members are courted by the local school district and the muni staff and council members. They want to fund their projects and so called maintenance. They need to focus on efficiency budget responsibly.

One recent group I know voted for a 5% across the board salary increase for all employees. I asked to justify this move when people I know lost their jobs during this covid shut down and still looking for employment other than a fast food business.

They are just like DC. The spend, spend …….
taxpreparer
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TriAg2010 said:

taxpreparer said:

Tex100 said:

taxpreparer said:

Property valuation should be frozen at the its value when it was purchased. Let the elected politicians change the rate as needed, instead of an unelected person (or person) decide what they think it is worth. what we have now is the equivalent of taxing unrealized gains.
Yeah, but it isn't an income tax. It is a valuation tax.
So, when has a wealth tax ever been acceptable?


Property taxes aren't a wealth tax if that is the point you're making.
If you are taxing me on valuation, what do you call it? It is not unrealized gains because it is on the full value, not the increase in valuation. A valuation tax is another term for wealth tax; just a specific asset is being counted.
***It's your money, not theIRS! (At least for a little while longer.)
TriAg2010
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taxpreparer said:

TriAg2010 said:

taxpreparer said:

Tex100 said:

taxpreparer said:

Property valuation should be frozen at the its value when it was purchased. Let the elected politicians change the rate as needed, instead of an unelected person (or person) decide what they think it is worth. what we have now is the equivalent of taxing unrealized gains.
Yeah, but it isn't an income tax. It is a valuation tax.
So, when has a wealth tax ever been acceptable?


Property taxes aren't a wealth tax if that is the point you're making.
If you are taxing me on valuation, what do you call it? It is not unrealized gains because it is on the full value, not the increase in valuation. A valuation tax is another term for wealth tax; just a specific asset is being counted.


It's a use tax. The valuation of a property is not your wealth.
Fishin Texas Aggie 05
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Spotted Ag said:

These *******s deserve to be put under the jail. Bunch of damn thieves is all they are. How ANY person with any self respect could choose to do work for an appraisal district is beyond me. They are the lowest of the low. Slime in the ice machine. Streaks in the toilet bowl. Dirtier than a homeless dude's underwear. Seriously, they can screw the hell right off.
those tears must be salty
Ellis Wyatt
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TXAGFAN said:

Spotted Ag said:

These *******s deserve to be put under the jail. Bunch of damn thieves is all they are. How ANY person with any self respect could choose to do work for an appraisal district is beyond me. They are the lowest of the low. Slime in the ice machine. Streaks in the toilet bowl. Dirtier than a homeless dude's underwear. Seriously, they can screw the hell right off.
Missed all the market appreciation the last year I guess? They're just doing their jobs and property taxes are the mechanism by which we fund our local govts in Texas. They experienced inflation and need more money to pay for school districts (yes those "groomers" have to be paid), city services, etc.
How many billions has unfettered illegal immigration cost Texas ISDs over the last 2 decades?

Why do you vote for the invasion?
TXAGFAN
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Ellis Wyatt said:

TXAGFAN said:

Spotted Ag said:

These *******s deserve to be put under the jail. Bunch of damn thieves is all they are. How ANY person with any self respect could choose to do work for an appraisal district is beyond me. They are the lowest of the low. Slime in the ice machine. Streaks in the toilet bowl. Dirtier than a homeless dude's underwear. Seriously, they can screw the hell right off.
Missed all the market appreciation the last year I guess? They're just doing their jobs and property taxes are the mechanism by which we fund our local govts in Texas. They experienced inflation and need more money to pay for school districts (yes those "groomers" have to be paid), city services, etc.
How many billions has unfettered illegal immigration cost Texas ISDs over the last 2 decades?

Why do you vote for the invasion?
Why didn't you fix problem when in charge all those years (not every year of course at federal level, Dems have controlled legislative/executive some periods) over last two decades?
Aggie95
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Right about now.... the whole "but Texas has no state income tax" is a fallacy. Sure, I pay a state income tax, but generally speaking, that value is way less than the value of the home. It certainly doesn't always work that way but in crazy home price times I feel like it works out in my favor.
Raptor
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Mom, retired teacher, lives in Robinson.

  • 3 bed
  • 2 bath
  • 1800sqft
  • 2 car garage
  • 0.3 acres on a lot with mature trees
  • Built in '70s

Assessed at (with homestead)
  • 2013 - $83k
  • 2017 - $95k
  • 2020 - $126k
  • 2021 - $139k
  • 2022 - $153k (HS Cap was $71k)

Appraised at
  • 2013 - $83k
  • 2017 - $95k
  • 2020 - $130k
  • 2021 - $145k
  • 2022 - $224k

Nothing in her house has been updated since pre-2000, except roof (2005) and foundation (2017).
This post is for Cretaceous Level Subscribers only.

YouBet
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aggrad02 said:

YouBet said:

This thread is why I asked the folks at The Texan to do an in depth article on this topic. There are multiple ways to do this but there are so many pros and cons and unintended consequences that no one really knows what the hell will really happen if we change it.

It seems like the right solution is some kind of hybrid model leveraging a capped property tax idea + sales tax idea, but who the hell knows.


This is what Debra Medina ran on in 2012. It was a good idea.

https://amp.statesman.com/amp/9788969007

" The Texas Public Policy Foundation study found that an average sales tax rate of 14.5 percent could raise enough to equal all the property and sales tax collections without changing what is now taxed. Applying the tax to more services and to real estate sales would allow a lower tax rate of 9 percent."

Maybe, but that doesn't convince yet. Stil feels like a hybrid model would work best because you could in theory mitigate the extreme impacts of going all in on way or the other. But, again, I don't know if that is true. Would need to see some extensive analysis on that. The challenge is I'm not sure if we have any real world examples of it. Maybe we do though...
EMY92
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Houstonag said:

Do not rely on the appeal to the board. At best you will get some token decrease if at all. The members are courted by the local school district and the muni staff and council members. They want to fund their projects and so called maintenance. They need to focus on efficiency budget responsibly.

One recent group I know voted for a 5% across the board salary increase for all employees. I asked to justify this move when people I know lost their jobs during this covid shut down and still looking for employment other than a fast food business.

They are just like DC. The spend, spend …….
The appeals boards are made up of volunteers. The appraisal district seeks new volunteers each year. They are not paid.

Most are retirees, some are likely for sticking it to people and others are not.

I have successfully appealed when I presented a good case and proved their comps were not a valid comparison.

The last appeal that I won, I met someone waiting for their appeal appointment. The couple said that they appealed each year. I asked what evidence they had to present, they replied that they have none, they just go in and state that the appraisal is too high. They lost every year.
 
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