The year 2016 was a good year for property taxes -- unless you're the one paying them. More than one billion dollars was collected in Harris County alone and local collections matched national growth.
“There was a lot of property value increases within Texas,” says Elizabeth Doss, director of the county's property tax collections, “especially some of the urban counties.”
Texans do pay a lot of property taxes, but Lone Star College Economics Department Director Hank Lewis notes there's a trade-off.
“In Texas,” Lewis says, “we pay higher property taxes (than other states), but some of that is a function of (the fact) we don't pay income tax.”
State and local governments collected a record $540 billion in property taxes last year, up $16 billion from the year before – or 3.2%.