Booming veteran tax exemption crippling Bell County area governments

[TexasTowelie]

KILLEEN -- On June 19, 2009, then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed a bill that was a sweeping win for both sides of the aisle at the 81st Texas Legislature in Austin.

House Bill 3613, which eliminated homestead property taxes for veterans with a 100 percent disability rating from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, was unanimously approved by the Texas House and Senate before reaching the governor’s desk. In 2011, the Legislature passed an equally successful bill extending that exemption to the spouses of 100 percent disabled veterans.

When the initial exemption went live in fiscal 2010, the effect was minor. Within a couple years, it developed into a major issue for governments surrounding Fort Hood, the most-populous military installation in Texas and a draw for veterans exiting the Army.

“Every bill starts as a good idea and then goes south from there,” said John Fisher, a Bell County commissioner whose district covers Killeen — ground zero of Bell County’s exemption explosion.

Read more: http://kdhnews.com/news/local/exclusive-booming-veteran-tax-exemption-crippling-area-governments/article_76313e1e-92b6-11e8-98b2-7fb78c54d07c.html

[beachbum bob]

1. Unintended consequences. Sound good, look good on paper, nobody asked

What happens IF we have a whole bunch of veterans with 100% disability live in areas in sufficient numbers....so now other homeowners will have subsidize these people with higher taxes on them.

[Farmer-Rick]

2. Weird

This only applies to 100% disable, which is a very small group. They claim over 7,400 are in that area. I guess it is possible, but I would be carefully checking to make sure each one is genuine.

[TexasTowelie]

3. The other factor that comes into consideration is that there is a VA hospital

in Temple, Texas which is only about 30 miles away (and also in Bell County). That would help to explain why there are so many veterans in that area.

[More_Cowbell]

4. It also applies to their spouses, who might live much longer

And the story mentions that there are older exemptions for veterans who are disabled at less than 100%.

I'd suggest something that I wish CA would do to turn back the horrible effects of Prop 13: assess the correct property taxes on these properties, and then collect when the properties are sold or otherwise transferred.

It's disingenuous for any state to exempt a property from its rightful property tax when the owner could go out and borrow money based on the real value. If the purpose is to keep property owners from losing their long-held property to rising taxes, then it seems to me that the answer is to attach the taxes to the house and get it when the property owner is no longer there.