Texas Tax Update At A Glance

It has been a fairly active first part of 2015 for Texas tax issues—legislatively, judicially, and administratively. We will provide a more thorough review in a future edition, but here are the key updates at a glance.

Recent Legislation

The 2015 Texas legislative session commenced January 13, 2015 and concluded on June 1, 2015. Legislators faced several somewhat interrelated key issues heading into the session. The current system of funding public education largely through local property taxes had once again been held unconstitutional.¹ The last time this education funding crisis occurred, the Legislature adopted the margin tax and dedicated the anticipated increase in revenue to funding public education (to reduce reliance on local property taxes and thus cure the constitutionality issues associated with funding public schools). The margin tax has since underperformed and been criticized for a number of reasons, while the reductions in local property taxes have