Bills Introduced – 5,345 and Counting! Reserve Your Seat At a TTARA Luncheon in Your Area to Find Out Which Ones You Should Worry About TTARA will host luncheons in Dallas on March 24th and Houston on April 20th to provide an update on budget and tax issues. With money issues dominating the landscape in…

Chairman Pitts Introduces HB2652: Punitive Chapter 313 bill In December, the Comptroller’s office shared with TTARA a list of seven concepts relating to curtailing the benefits of the school property tax limitations offered under Chapter 313 of the Tax Code. Today, House Appropriations Chairman Jim Pitts introduced HB2652, which would incorporate the Comptroller’s concepts into…

New School Finance Proposals by Rep. Hochberg Representative Scott Hochberg (D-Houston) filed two school finance bills today which contrast two diametrically opposed approaches to funding schools in the current budget environment. HB 2485 would adjust current formulas downward to match the level of appropriations in the proposed budget bill—roughly $9.8 billion below current law formulas….

Comptroller Endorses Partial Use of Rainy Day Fund Comptroller Susan Combs testified before the House Appropriations Committee this week on the state’s budget situation and endorsed using a portion of the Rainy Day Fund to close the state’s projected deficit for the current 2011 fiscal year. She noted that there was not enough time remaining…

Nexus Issues Percolating In recent weeks, the obscure issue of taxpayer “nexus” has become the focal point of discussions in the Capitol as a result of a dispute between the state and Amazon.com—the nation’s leading internet retailer and operator of a warehouse in Irving. Under U.S. Supreme Court rulings concerning the application of the interstate…