If signed by Gov. Abbott, two of the 10 proposals passed by the Legislature are aimed to help Texans impacted by natural disasters.
“It could lower property taxes, which you can't now technically do in the case of a natural disaster,” says Harvey Kronberg at The Quorum Report. “The other thing is to create a fund to try to prevent these things from happening.”
Then there's a ban on collecting “individual” income tax, which Democrats argued businesses could take advantage of.
“We're talking about a personal income tax, but the way it's written, it could be construed as also affecting certain kinds of businesses and get them off for some of their tax burdens,” says Kronberg.
“The banning of a personal income tax right now means nothing because we're not collecting one,” he says. “But if all of sudden businesses are feed up of various taxes they have to pay, that can get up into the billions pretty quickly.”
Other amendments would allow police dogs to retire with their handlers, allocate all sales tax collected on sporting goods directly to state parks, and allowing municipal judges to serve multiple rural towns.