Texas-Sized Tax Breaks Revived by State Lawmakers

The expired school tax breaks led to recruiting companies that built super factories like Tesla and Samsung in Texas. However, the generous tax incentives, ones that allowed business to reduce their school tax bill in exchange for creating jobs, were wiped out when they were sunsetted at the end of last year. Chapter 313 has returned as Chapter 403. 403 is now the law and the tax breaks will resume.

Specifically, Chapter 403 gives Texas school districts the ability to cap the taxable value of a property for up to 10 years for what’s known as the maintenance and operations portion of school taxes, which pay for day-to-day operations of public schools. The tax incentives could save participants millions, and in some cases billions of dollars.

Critics have called them corporate welfare that pads the bottom line of companies that were coming to Texas anyway. But supporters of the incentives have said they’re needed to make Texas, which has relatively high property taxes, competitive for major economic development projects.