HOUSE, SENATE ANNOUNCE AGREEMENT ON TAX CUT PACKAGE
(AUSTIN) — Committees in each chamber considered the other’s tax cut plan as members announced a deal had been reached on how to deliver billions in property tax relief this session. A sticky issue last session, this time around legislators seem to be on the same page, with the Senate Local Government Committee taking up HB 9, the House’s plan for business tax relief on the same day the House Ways & Means Committee took up SB 32, the Senate’s homestead property tax bill. “We’ve got home and business property tax relief on the way at the Texas Legislature, and that’s a happy day,” said Local Government Committee chair and Houston Senator Paul Bettencourt.
The House will move a bill that is the same as the version approved by the Senate. That bill raises the homestead exemption for all homeowners from $100,000 to $140,000, with senior citizen and disabled homeowners eligible for a further $60,000 on top of that. House Bill 9, by Ways & Means chair and Dallas Representative Morgan Meyers, would differ significantly from the Senate’s business property tax relief plan, wholly achieving the savings through an exemption on the business personal property tax that all businesses pay each year on office and manufacturing equipment. “People get taxed on this over and over again and it gets to be a bit like Groundhog Day,” Bettencourt said of the annual levee. Currently, businesses are allowed to write off only $2,500 of the appraised value of business personal property, but this version of HB 9 would raise that to $125,000, an amount that Bettencourt said could exempt almost all small businesses from the tax.
Edgewood Senator Bob Hall’s bill would get rid of the gap between early voting and election day.
As it came out of the House, the bill would’ve permitted exemption claims up to $250,000. The Senate version only raised the personal property tax exemption to $25,000 and achieved most savings by allowing business owners to receive a franchise tax credit for up to 20 percent of their business inventory. Negotiations between the chambers resulted in the compromise, which would remove the tax credit plan and replace it entirely with the large increase to business personal property exemptions.
On the floor Monday, the Senate gave tentative approval to a bill that would get rid of the gap between early voting and voting day. Bill author and Edgewood Senator Bob Hall said that much of the controversy over the security and integrity of the vote stems from increasingly complex procedures. “Part of the solution to restoring election confidence is to simplify the process by instituting a single, uninterrupted voting period governed by common procedures and allowing the use of a single set of equipment,” he said. In 2026, for example, in-person early voting will start on October 20th and run through Halloween, with the general election being held five days later on November 5th. Hall’s bill, SB 2753, would get rid of that gap and have a single election period that begins the second Monday before election day and runs straight through to election day. Hall stressed that the bill makes no changes to mail-in voting, countywide voting, or the number of early voting days. The bill will still need to face another, final vote later this week before it heads to the House.
Over the weekend, Governor Greg Abbott held a ceremony at the mansion to sign the central piece of his legislative agenda, SB 2, the school choice bill. “The day has arrived that empowers parents to choose the school that’s best for their child,” Abbott said to the assembled crowd. “Today, school choice becomes law in the great state of Texas.” The new law, which would create about 100,000 education savings accounts backed by $1 billion in state funds, is effective September 1 but is expected to be implemented late next year.
###