April 27, 2023
Written by: Eleanor Kim, DMA Tax Counsel

DuCharme, McMillen & Associates, Inc. (DMA) provides this information relating to the 88th Texas Legislature Regular Session.

The 88th Texas Legislative Session ends May 29, 2023, and critical deadlines are approaching. House bills and House joint resolutions are subject to the following deadlines:

May 8, 2023: all House committees must report on House bills and House joint resolutions.

May 9, 2023: the House must distribute its last House daily calendar with House bills and house joint resolutions.

May 10, 2023: the House must distribute its last House local and consent calendar with consent House bills.

All House committees will be working overtime this week to meet the impending deadlines. All House bills that do not get heard by a committee, are left pending in a committee, or are not added to the last calendar, will die unless the proposals reflected therein are added as amendments to moving bills. Adding amendments to a moving bill is not easy because the Texas Constitution prohibits any amendments that are not germane to a bill’s title (i.e., caption) and would materially change the bill’s original purpose.

The Senate does not have comparable deadlines, but the House procedural deadlines will eventually affect what bills the Senate considers by the end of its last calendar.

To date, nothing significant has passed. The House and the Senate have passed their respective property tax relief bills, but differences between the two have yet to be reconciled. Negotiations are taking place behind the scenes, and we will have to wait to see what consensus is reached.

BILLS

Following are tax-related bills that have moved since our April 12, 2023 update on the 88th Texas Legislative Session.

Jump to bills by tax type:

 

SALES/USE TAX

HB 105 (Noble, Candy) would amend Tax Code §151.0038 to exclude from taxable information services the furnishing of an academic transcript. The House passed the bill on April 19, 2023, and the Senate has referred the engrossed bill to the Senate Finance Committee.

HB 4094 (Oliverson, Tom) would add Tax Code §163.010 to allow a person to claim a refund of sales tax paid on the purchase of an aircraft if: (1) the person enters into a written lease agreement to transfer operational control of the aircraft to a lessee for at least 50% of the aircraft’s departures; (2) the written lease is for a term of at least 24 months; and (3) the lessee is an FAA certified flight training school. The person may claim a sales tax refund equal to the percentage of the aircraft’s departures for which operation control is transferred under the agreement. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the bill on April 20, 2023.

HB 5089 (Meyer, Morgan), as substituted, would amend Chapter 321 (City Sales/Use Tax) and Chapter 323 (County Sales/Use Tax) of the Tax Code, to change the sourcing rules from origin to destination based on the location to which the item is shipped or delivered or where the purchaser takes possession. The bill would make the following exceptions to destination sourcing: (1) A small business would source its sales to its principal business location. The term “small business” means a sales tax permit holder that: (A) has its principal business location in Texas; (B) has less than 20 employees, including all employees of each member of an affiliated group that includes the permit holder; and (C) has a total combined gross receipts from the sale of tangible personal property and services in the preceding twelve calendar months of less than $500,000, including the gross receipts of each member of an affiliated group that includes the permit holder. The term “principal business location” means the business location where the decision makers of a business conduct the daily affairs of the organization; (2) A retailer that is not a small business and that receives an order from a customer who places the order in person at a place of business of the retailer would source the sale to the retailer’s place of business; and (3) A retailer that has an active economic development agreement may make an election in collecting and reporting local sales/use tax. “Active economic development agreement” means an agreement under Chapter 380, 381, 504, or 505, Local Government Code, under which the local government made payments on or before January 1, 2023, based on local sales and use tax collections. If a retailer has an active economic development agreement with a municipality/county and has a single place of business in Texas that is within the municipality/county, the retailer may elect to collect and report the sales tax based on the location of the retailer’s single place of business. If a retailer has an active economic development agreement with a municipality/county, the retailer may elect to collect and report the sales tax based on the location of the retailer within the municipality/county from which an item is shipped directly to the purchaser or the purchaser’s designee. Both election provisions expire December 31, 2028. The bill would amend the definition of a “place of business of a retailer” to exclude a computer server, Internet protocol address, domain name, website, or software application. (This would codify the Comptroller’s rule change made in Rule 3.334, which is currently in litigation in City of Round Rock et al v. Hegar.) The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the committee substitute on April 24, 2023.

HB 3104 (Anderson, Doc), as substituted, would add Tax Code §151.3596 to provide for a temporary exemption for a qualified connected data center project on certain purchases. A connected data center project undertakes the construction or refurbishment of building(s) that are primarily used to house servers and related equipment and support staff for the processing, storage, and distribution of data. To qualify, a project has to make a minimum capital investment of $500 million, create at least 40 qualifying jobs, and meet other requirements. In return, a certified project would be eligible to claim an exemption for 20 years on the purchases of: (1) electricity; (2) an electrical system; (3) a cooling system; (4) a backup electricity generation system; (5) hardware or a distributed mainframe computer or server; (6) a data storage device; (7) network connectivity equipment; (8) a rack, cabinet, and raised floor system; (9) a peripheral component or system; (10) software; and (11) a mechanical, electrical, or plumbing system that is necessary to operate any tangible personal property described in (2) through (10), including a fixture. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the committee substitute on April 24, 2023.

SB 1000 (West, Royce), as substituted, would add Tax Code §151.3265 to exempt the sale of an article of clothing or footwear that are exempt during the back-to-school holiday held the first weekend of August if they are purchased during the October 13, 2023 and October 15, 2023 and if the sales price is less than $200. The section would expire on October 31, 2023. The Senate passed the bill on April 20, 2023, and the House has received the engrossed bill.

SB 1053 (Hughes, Bryan) would amend the definition of a “marketplace seller” provided by Tax Code §151.0242(a)(3) to exclude the marketplace provider’s affiliate who makes a sale of a taxable item through a marketplace. The term “affiliate” means a person who controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with another person. The Senate passed the bill on April 12, 2023, and the House has referred the engrossed bill to the House Ways & Means Committee on April 14, 2023.

SB 612 (Johnson, Nathan) would amend Tax Code §327.007 to allow cities that have the municipal street sales tax for maintenance and repair to reauthorize the tax for either 8 or 10 years instead of 4 years if the majority of the voters in each of the last two consecutive elections approved its adoption or reauthorization. The Senate passed the bill on April 12, 2023, and the House has referred the engrossed bill to the House Ways & Means Committee.

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FRANCHISE TAX

SB 1243 (Huffman, Joan) would add Tax Code §171.10132 to allow a taxable entity to exclude from total revenue qualifying broadband grant proceeds for broadband deployment in Texas, to deduct the proceeds as cost of goods sold (COGS) if they are expenses that may be included in the COGS deduction, and to deduct the proceeds as compensation if they are expenses that may be included in the compensation deduction. The changes would apply retroactively to reports due on or after January 1, 2023. The Senate passed the bill on April 18, 2023, and the House has referred the engrossed bill to the House Ways & Means Committee. The companion bill, HB 2859 (Ashby, Trent), was voted out by the House Ways & Means Committee on April 17, 2023.

SB 1614 (Perry, Charles) would amend Tax Code §171.1012(o) to expand the current COGS deduction that is allowed for a taxable entity whose principal business activity is film or television production broadcasting to include a taxable entity whose principal business activity is television or radio broadcasting. The bill defines “television or radio broadcasting” to mean television or radio broadcasting under a television or radio broadcast license issued by the Federal Communications Commission and regulated under 47 C.F.R. Part 73 or 74. The Senate passed the bill on April 12, 2023, and the House Ways & Means Committee heard the engrossed bill on April 24, 2023.

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GENERAL

(Applies to all taxes)

HB 3395 (Capriglione, Giovanni), as substituted, would add Chapter 610 to the Business & Commerce Code to provide that a state and local tax that is calculated as a percent of the amount of an electronic payment transaction and listed separately on a payment invoice or other demand for payment should not include a swipe fee that is charged for that transaction in the tax base. The provision applies only to electronic payment transactions conducted by a merchant that is a small business as defined by the United States Small Business Administration on September 1, 2023. A swipe fee means the interchange fee, which is a fee that is charged to a merchant for the purpose of compensating the payment card issuer for the issuer’s involvement in an electronic payment transaction, and if applicable, the assessment fee, which is a fee paid directly to the payment card network for allowing a merchant to use a payment card or other payment code or device in an electronic payment transaction. The House Pensions/Investments/Financial Services Committee voted out the committee substitute on April 13, 2023.

HB 2691 (Button, Angie Chen) would amend Government Code §403.055 to authorize the Comptroller to release any held payments of a debtor that is in excess of the amount of outstanding debt that another state agency has reported to the Comptroller and would require the reporting state agency to notify a debtor that the debts are being reported to the Comptroller and that payments from the state will be held due to the debt owed. The House passed the bill on April 21, 2023, and the Senate has referred the engrossed bill to the Senate Finance Committee.

SB 506 (Perry, Charles), as substituted, would require each state agency to submit a report on December 1 of each even-numbered year that contains certain information applicable to the state agency’s administration of state taxes and fees. Among others, the report would require a description of all audits performed by the agency, a description of the results of each audit, including emerging issues and errors, a list of each fee that the agency first administers as a result of legislation; and the list of each rule relating to a tax or fee adopted or amended by the agency as a result of legislation, a court determination or a policy. The Senate passed the bill on April 17, 2023, and the House has referred the engrossed bill to the House State Affairs Committee.

SB 952 (Perry, Chares) would: (1) amend Tax Code §111.0041(c) and §112.052(d) to require taxpayers to produce “sufficient” records and supporting documentation (rather than “contemporaneous” records and supporting documentation; (2) amend Tax Code §111.0081 to provide that the 10% additional penalty imposed when an audit assessment is not timely paid is abated if a taxpayer timely files a lawsuit after redetermination (Subchapter e), but the penalty would be due if the taxpayer fails to pay the audit liability within 20 days of a court’s judgment; (3) add Tax Code §111.0091 to allow a taxpayer that has performed a managed audit under Tax Code §151.0231 or §201.3021 to bypass the redetermination hearing process and to file a lawsuit in district court to appeal the managed audit results. The notice of intent to bypass the redetermination process must be filed on or before the 60th day within the managed audit results, but a taxpayer is required to hold a conference with the Comptroller before the filing of a lawsuit; (4) repeal Tax Code §111.105(e) that allows the Comptroller to issue a 180-day demand notice for supporting documentation of a refund claim. The Senate passed the bill on April 12, 2023, and the House has referred the engrossed bill to the House Ways & Means Committee.

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HOTEL OCCUPANCY TAX

(Excludes bills relating to revenue use or revenue sharing)

HB 1034 (Stucky, Lynn) would amend Tax Code §352.002 by adding a new subsection that authorizes Wise County to impose a county hotel occupancy tax and would amend Tax Code §352.003 to impose a ceiling of 2% on such tax imposition. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the bill on April 11, 2023, and the bill on the House Calendar for April 28, 2023.

HB 1689 (Murr, Andres) would amend Tax Code §352.005 to: (1) authorize a county to spend a portion of the county hotel occupancy tax revenue to create, maintain, operate, and administer an electronic tax administration system; (2) prohibit a county from using the same revenue to conduct audits; and (3) authorize a person who collects and remits a county hotel occupancy tax using the newly created electronic tax administration system to retain up to 1% of the tax collected and remitted as reimbursement. The House passed the bill on April 26, 2023.

HB 1410 (Rogers, Glenn) would amend Tax Code §352.002(a)to allow Palo Pinto County to continue to impose county hotel occupancy tax. The House Ways & Means Committee on 4/11/2023. On House Calendar for April 28, 2023.

HB 3235 (Troxclair, Ellen) would authorize Blanco to impose a seven percent county hotel occupancy tax for use in promoting tourism in the county. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the bill on April 11, 2023.

HB 3453 (Jetton, Jacey) would authorize Fort Bend County to impose a hotel occupancy tax. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the bill on 4/11/2023.

HB 4565 (Longoria, Oscar) would authorize the City of Harlingen to increase its municipal hotel occupancy tax rate by two percent, with this additional revenue being able to be used to pay costs associated with the construction, expansion, maintenance, financing, operation, or debt service of the convention center. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the bill and recommended it for the House Local and Consent Calendar.

HB 5178 (Ashby, Trent) would authorize a certain county containing a portion of the Angelina National Forest to impose a hotel occupancy tax to generate revenue for funding initiatives such as tourism development, historic preservation programs, and promotion of the arts. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the bill and recommended it for the House Local and Consent Calendar.

SB 1809 (Sparks, Kevin) would authorize Armstrong County to impose a county hotel occupancy tax with a maximum county tax rate of seven percent for those areas of the county that are not subject to a municipal hotel occupancy tax. The Senate passed the bill on April 19, 2023, and the House has referred the engrossed bill to the House Ways & Means Committee.

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NEW TAX

HB 4772 (Thierry, Shawn) would add Chapter 164, Tax Code, to impose a tax on a person who receives an e-cigarette or alternative nicotine product for the purpose of making a first sale in Texas. The tax rate is: (1) five cents for each milliliter or fractional part of a milliliter of vapor product sold for use in an open-system e-cigarette; (2) five cents for each e-cigarette pod sold for use in a closed-system e-cigarette; (3) five percent of the wholesale cost price, exclusive of any discount, promotion, or allowance, on each closed-system e-cigarette that does not use an e-cigarette pod; and (4) $1.23 per ounce of net volume of the alternative nicotine product, as listed by the manufacturer, on each alternative nicotine product sold. The person who makes the first sale in Texas pays the tax but adds the tax to the price charged to the customer such that the ultimate consumer pays the tax. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the committee substitute on April 17, 2023.

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SEVERANCE TAX

HB 228 (Goodwin, Vikki) proposes to: (1) repeal the exemption from gas production tax for gas produced from oil wells with oil and lawfully vented or flared; (2) impose a 25% tax on the market value of such gas; and (3) provide an annual exemption for flared or vented gas at the producer’s election of 1,000 mcf or 0.5% of the total amount of gas produced in the state by the producer during the calendar year. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the bill on April 24, 2023.

HB 591 (Capriglione, Giovanni) would add Tax Code §201.061 to exclude from natural gas production tax gas that is produced from a qualifying well that is consumed on the well site and that would otherwise have been lawfully vented or flared. The term “qualifying well” means a well that: (A) is connected to a pipeline on which pipeline takeaway capacity is not expected to meet the demand for gas produced by the well; (B) is not connected to a pipeline and for which connection to a pipeline is technically or commercially unfeasible but is operated by a well operator who has contractually dedicated the well, the gas produced from the well, or the land or lease on which the well is located to a pipeline operator; or (C) is not connected to a pipeline and is operated by a well operator who has not contractually dedicated the well the gas produced from the well, or the land or lease on which the well is located to a pipeline operator. A well operator and a pipeline operator, as applicable, would apply to the Texas Railroad Commission for certification of a well as a qualifying well and would submit the certification to the Texas Comptroller with an application for the tax exemption. The House passed the bill on April 14, 2023, and the Senate has referred the engrossed bill to the Senate Finance Committee.

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PROPERTY TAX

HB 2 (Meyer, Morgan) would: (1) add Education Code §48.2555 to provide for a maximum compressed tax rate for the 2023-2024 school year and require the Education Commissioner to calculate the value of a school district’s maximum compressed tax rate by reducing it by 15 cents; (2) amend Tax Code §31.072(a) to change the current option to a mandate that at the request of a property owner, the collector for a taxing unit enter a contract to escrow account the payment of property taxes; and (3) amend Tax Code §23.23 to impose a 5% cap on the annual increase of an appraisal district on all real property. The bill is contingent on the passage of a constitutional amendment (HJR 1) and on the voters’ approval of the constitutional amendment. The House passed the bill and HJR 1 on April 14, 2023, and the Senate has received the engrossed bill.

HB 35 (Bernal, Diego), as substituted, would amend Tax Code §31.031(a) to permit an individual who has residence homestead exemption for property located in a county with a population greater than 1.5 million and where more than 70% residence in a single municipality, to pay property taxes on that homestead in four equal installments. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the committee substitute on April 20, 2023.

HB 159 (Landgraf, Brooks) would amend Tax Code §26.04 to provide that a taxing unit that is required to post-tax rate information on the taxing unit’s Internet website is required to publish a summary of that information and the uniform resource locator (URL) address of the location where the information is posted in a newspaper of general circulation in each county in which the taxing unit is located. The requirement would not apply to a taxing unit located wholly or partly in a county with a population of one million or more; or where no part of the taxing unit is located in a county in which a newspaper of general circulation is published. The House passed the bill on April 26, 2023.

HB 260 (Murr, Andrew) would amend Tax Code §23.51(5) to provide that “wildlife or livestock disease or pest area,” as that term is used in “net to life,” means an area designated by a state agency as an area in which a disease or pest that affects wildlife or livestock exists or may exist, including a chronic wasting disease containment or surveillance zone and an area subject to a quarantine authorized by Subtitle C, Title 6, Agriculture Code. The House passed the bill on April 14, 2023, and the Senate has referred the engrossed bill to the Senate Local Government Committee.

HB 623 (Harris, Cody) would amend Tax Code §11.162 to provide that the owner of tangible personal property consisting of animal feed that is exempt from sales/use tax under Tax Code §151.316(a)(3) or (4) is entitled to an exemption from property tax if the animal feed is held by the owner for sale at retail. The exemption is contingent on the passage of a constitutional amendment (HJR 47) and on the voters’ approval of the constitutional amendment. The House passed HJR 47 on April 25, 2023 and passed HB 623 on April 26, 2023.

HB 1285 (Shine, Hugh) would authorize the board of directors of an appraisal district to appoint one or more deputy taxpayer liaison officers to assist the taxpayer liaison officer and establishes that the taxpayer liaison officer is the taxpayer assistance officer for the district. The House passed the bill on April 21, 2023.

HB 1634 (Walle, Armando) would amend Local Government Code §303.042(f) to specify that the current property tax exemption for leaseholds or other possessory interest in a public facility applies to a public facility used to provide multifamily housing only if the public facility user meets specified low-income housing requirements. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the bill on April 20, 2023.

HB 2121 (Paul, Dennis) would amend Tax Code §22.24(e) to add that a rendition or report can be filed on behalf of a property owner who is rendering tangible personal property used for the production of income that has an estimated market value of not more than $500,000 without requiring a sworn statement. The House passed the bill on April 25, 2023.

HB 2354 (Hefner, Cole) would amend Tax Code §23.54 to provide the ownership of agricultural land is not considered to have changed if the ownership is transferred from the former owner to the surviving spouse or a surviving child of the former owner. The House passed the bill on April 14, 2023.

HB 2397 (Guillen, Ryan) would amend Tax Code §11.43, to provide that the ownership of the property is not considered to have changed if ownership of the property is transferred from the former owner to the surviving spouse or a surviving child of the former owner and would amend §23.54 to provide that the ownership of land is not deemed to have changed if the new owner uses the land in materially the same way as the former owner used the land during the preceding tax year. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the bill on April 17, 2023.

HB 2747 (Darby, Drew) would amend Tax Code §11.43 to require an appraisal district to develop a program for the periodic review of each residence homestead exemption granted by the district to confirm the exemption qualification. The program would require the review of each residence homestead exemption at least once every five tax years. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the bill on April 17, 2023.

HB 3241 (Guillen, Ryan) would amend Tax Code §11.162 to exempt farm production inputs in the hands of the producer. The bill defines “Farm production inputs” to include seeds, weaned animals, fertilizer, pesticides, feed, and any other resources that are necessary to produce crops, fruit, flowers, and other products of the soil, or farm products defined in Tax Code §11.16. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the bill and HJR 141 on April 20, 2023.

HB 3242 (Hefner, Cole) would amend Tax Code §11.43 relating to the eligibility of the surviving spouse of an elderly person who qualified for a local option exemption by a taxing unit of a portion of the appraised value of the deceased person’s residence homestead to continue to receive an exemption for the same property. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the bill on April 20, 2023.

HB 3273 (Thierry, Shawn) would amend Tax Code §26.04 to provide that beginning January 1, 2024, the chief appraiser is required to inform each property owner that the estimated amount of taxes imposed on the property can be found in the property tax database (if website is maintained) and to publish the notice in a county-wide newspaper. The House passed the bill on April 20, 2023.

HB 3364 (Button, Angie Chen) would: (1) amend Tax Code §1.07 to require notices be sent by certified mail pertaining to a property that was not on the appraisal roll in the preceding year because it was omitted property; (2) amend Tax Code §6.035 to reduce the length of term for a member of the board of directors from five to three terms for counties of 120,000 or more in population; (3) amend Chapter 6, Tax Code, to require an appraisal district with a population of 120,000 to maintain a website and to post on the appraisal district’s website the appraisal records, other than records that are confidential under law, and to continuously update the posted records to include any change in the appraised value of property; (4) amend Tax Code §41.45 to change the written notice deadline requirement for a telephonic hearing from 10 days to five days; (5) amend Tax Code §41.45 to require the appraisal review board to deliver written notice of a protest hearing dismissal for failure to appear within 30 days of the scheduled hearing date; (6) amend Tax Code §41.61 to change the deadline to deliver a subpoena for good cause hearing from 5th to the 15th day; (7) amend Chapter 41A, Tax Code, to allow a person leasing the property to file an appeal through binding arbitration if the person is contractually obligated to reimburse the property owner for taxes, the owner does not appeal the order and the appraised value of the property is $5 million or less; and (8) amend Tax Code §41A.015(a) to allow a property owner to request limited binding arbitration to compel the appraisal review board or chief appraiser to either comply with the model hearing procedures prepared by the Comptroller including by rescinding procedural rules that are not in compliance with the model, or use of correct appraised values for protests on the ground of unequal appraisal of property. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the bill on April 20, 2023.

HB 3555 (Plesa, Mihaela) would amend Chapter 31, Tax Code, to require school districts with a local revenue level in excess of entitlement, which have taken measures in the current tax year to reduce the district revenue, to include certain information on the tax bill or provide a separate statement of the percentage of taxes for maintenance and operations. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the bill on April 17, 2023.

HB 3621 (Talarico, James) would add Tax Code §11.36 to provide an exemption for a person who owns and operates a qualifying child-care facility or the portion of the real property that the person owns and leases to a person who uses the property to operate a qualifying child-care facility. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the bill on April 24, 2023.

HB 3640 (Noble, Candy) would add Tax Code §11.36 to provide an exemption of value equal to the residence homestead exemption for school districts provided by Tax Code §11.13(b) if the real property that the person owns is the primary residence of an adult who has intellectual or developmental disabilities and who is related to the owner. The exemption is contingent on the passage of a constitutional amendment (HJR 150) and on the voters’ approval of the constitutional amendment. The House passed the bill on April 25, 2023.

HB 3857 (Thimesch, Kronda) would: (1) amend Tax Code §23.51 to provide that in appraising qualified open-space land, the chief appraiser shall distinguish between the degree of intensity required for various agricultural production methods; and (2) add Tax Code §23.5215 to require the Comptroller, in consultation with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, to develop guidelines for determining the degree of intensity generally accepted in the area. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the bill on April 20, 2023.

HB 4077 (Noble, Candy) would amend Tax Code §11.43 to clarify that an individual who is 64 and is receiving a residence homestead exemption is eligible for claim certain additional tax exemption that is available to individuals 65 or older in the following tax year without the need to apply if the individual’s information on file supports granting the exemption. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the bill on April 20, 2023.

HB 4101 (Shine, Hugh) would amend Tax Code §41A.015 to authorize a property owner who has filed a notice of protest to request for a limited binding arbitration to compel the appraisal review board or the chief appraiser to comply with the model hearing procedures adopted by the appraisal review board. The House passed the bill on April 25, 2023.

HB 4980 (Noble, Candy) would amend Tax Code §41A.03 to replace the appraisal district with the Comptroller to whom the property owner must submit a request for a binding arbitration to appeal an appraisal review board’s order. The bill would require the Comptroller to receive the request through an online electronic system and would allow a property owner to designate an agent to represent the owner in an arbitration proceeding on a signed form prescribed by the Comptroller. The House Ways & Means Committee voted out the bill on April 17, 2023.

SB 348 (Springer, Drew) would amend Tax Code §25.027(b), which currently allows the posting of an aerial photograph that depicts five or more separately owned buildings, to permit the posting of: (1) an aerial photograph that depicts more than one separately owned buildings; (2) a street level photograph of only the exterior of a building; or (3) a field record or overhead sketch of the property that depicts only the outline of the buildings, the general landscape of the property, and the dimensions of or distances between the buildings and features depicted. The Senate passed the bill on April 12, 2023, and the House has referred the engrossed bill to the House Ways & Means Committee.

SB 539 (Campbell, Donna) would amend Tax Code §33.03 to require each taxing unit to indicate on each delinquent roll whether a tax delinquency is deferred or abated for residence homestead under Tax Code §33.06 (Elderly, Disabled, Disabled Veteran) or §33.065 (Appreciating homestead). The Senate passed the bill on April 20, 2023.

SB 1215 (Paxton, Angela) would amend Tax Code §1.071 to require a collector or taxing unit to send a refund to a particular address upon request by the property owner (rather than to the property owner’s mailing address) if the request is made on a form prescribed the Comptroller and is submitted before the date the refund is issued. The Senate Local Government Committee voted out the committed substitute on April 4, 2023. The Senate passed the bill on April 20, 2023.

SB 1252 (Bettencourt, Paul) would amend Election Code §52.072(e) to require a proposition that is submitted to the voters for approval to include a statement “THIS IS A TAX INCREASE” when applicable. The Senate passed the bill on April 20, 2023.

SB 1340 (Zaffirini, Judith) would: (1) amend Government Code §403.0246 to include agreements under Chapter 312 or 313, Tax Code, in the definition of “local development agreement” for inclusion of such information in the Comptroller’s database that the agency is required to create and maintain; (2) require the Comptroller to maintain additional data, including impacts on sales/use tax, ad valorem tax or hotel occupancy tax, on its website; (3) require the submission of agreements (new, amendments or renewals) to the Comptroller. The Senate passed the bill on April 20, 2023.

SB 1487 (Bettencourt, Paul) would amend Tax Code §1.085 to make electronic communications available at the election of the property owner, rather than by mutual agreement between the owner and local tax officials as permitted under current law. The word “communication” is defined to include a notice of appraised value, rendition, application form, completed application, report, filing, statement, appraisal review board order, bill, or other item of information required or permitted under the law. The Senate passed the bill on April 20, 2023.

SB 1814 (Bettencourt, Paul) would amend Tax Code§ 26.012(3) to modify the definition of “current debt” for purposes of calculating an interest and sinking tax rate, to include only the minimum amount required by a bond issuance’s schedule. The Senate Local Government Committee voted out the bill on April 17, 2023.

SB 1923 (Springer, Drew) would amend Tax Code §42.23 to provide that a chief appraiser, appraisal district or appraisal review board may not bring a counterclaim in a judicial appeal and would repeal Tax Code §42.02 which allows a chief appraiser to appeal an appraisal review board’s order determining a taxpayer’s protest or a taxpayer’s motion to change the appraisal roll. The Senate passed the bill on April 24, 2023.

SB 1998 (Bettencourt, Paul) would amend Tax Code §26.03 to require each line-item entry on the tax rate calculation forms include a hyperlink to a document that evidences the accuracy of the entry.

The Senate passed the bill on April 20, 2023.

SB 1999 (Bettencourt, Paul) would amend Tax Code §26.013 to change the unused increment rate formula. The Senate Local Government Committee voted out the bill on April 18, 2023.

SB 2289 (Huffman, Joan) would add Tax Code §11.36 to provide an exemption for certain tangible personal property held by a manufacturer of medical or biomedical products as a finished good or used in the manufacturing or processing of medical or biomedical products. The Senate passed the bill on April 13, 2023.

SB 2350 (Bettencourt, Paul ) would amend Tax Code §23.013 to change the definition of “voter-approval tax rate” to insert the phrase “as adopted by the taxing unit during the applicable preceding tax year.” The Senate Local Government Committee voted out the bill on April 18, 2023.

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