PART:1 Why Are my Property Taxes Increasing?

Your property taxes are going up and you’re not sure why.

It is April and we all as property owners are getting those letters in the mail from your local appraisal district giving you a notice of your market value on your property because remember that property taxes, the whole concept is that you pay taxes based on the value of your property. So the appraisal district’s job is to put that value on your property that you’re taxed on, and that’s what you’re getting right now.

But if you open up your letter, it tells you what your tax will be in October. That’s not what the final amount is going to be. The Property tax amount that you pay in October is based on your assessed value less any exemptions that you qualify for and multiplied by the tax rate. Now, the tax rate is not something determined right now that gets settled over the next several months by all the taxing entities like your hospitals, your schools, your city, and that’s when you get your final tax bill in October after those rates are set.

So right now all we’re worried about is the assessed value or the market value that the appraisal district has put on your property. So if you’re thinking you’re going to go protest and you walk in there and say, ‘These tax rates are too high, these schools are building these new schools and I don’t even want to do that…’ You’re barking up the wrong tree if you’re going into the appraisal district and you’re talking about tax rates, they don’t set the tax rates. They only talk to them about exemptions and the assessed values or the market values.

So if you open up your nice little letter, it’s going to tell you what your market value was last year and what they’re proposing it to be this year and you get to protest that. But this example is going to be a homestead property, a primary residence in the state of Texas.

It says year over year the appraisal district cannot increase your assessed value the same amount the next time. So there’s market value and then there’s assessed value, what they tax you on. — Remember those two different terms.

Let’s just say that your house last year was $250,000 and you open up your notice this year and the market value increased to $350,000. It jumped $100,000 in market value in one year. Again, remember the state of Texas says that you’re assessed value can’t go more than 10%.

So last year was at $250,000.What is 10% of $250,000 Twenty $5000 So your assessed value, the amount that your tax fund is $275,000 even though your market value that they’re saying is $350,000. You know, well, I’m not gonna protest. I don’t have time. Year over year it increases 10% based on the market value. This is why you wanna protest your market value if it is incorrect.

Now, this video is not going to be about how you protest and another video. I’m gonna talk about how to protest, what you should talk about, what you should look for and all those things because I’ve done it.