HBA-KMH S.B. 694 76(R)    BILL ANALYSIS


Office of House Bill AnalysisS.B. 694
By: Cain
Ways & Means
5/21/1999
Committee Report (Amended)



BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE 

Current law requires a chief appraiser to provide written notice to a
property owner of the appraised value of property for ad valorem tax
purposes, but does not specify that the notice be in the form of a letter.
S.B. 694 requires the chief appraiser to notify a property owner in the
form of a letter and deletes several provisions requiring the notice to
include specific information. 

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that this bill does
not expressly delegate any additional rulemaking authority to a state
officer, department, agency, or institution. 

SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS

SECTION 1.  Amends Section 25.19, Tax Code, as follows:

Sec. 25.19.  NOTICE OF APPRAISED VALUE.  (a) Requires the notice prescribed
to be clear and understandable.  Makes a nonsubstantive change. 

(b)  Deletes from the required notice of the appraised value provided by
the chief appraiser to the property owner the following information:  

_the taxable value of the property in the preceding year for each taxing
unit taxing the property;  

_the effective tax rate that would be announced pursuant to Chapter 26
(Assessment) if the total values being submitted to the appraisal review
board were to be approved by the board with an explanation that that rate
would raise the same amount of revenue from property taxed in the preceding
year as the unit raised for those purposes in the preceding year if the
appraised value is greater than it was in the preceding year;  

_a statement that the governing body of the unit is prohibited from
adopting a rate that will increase tax revenues above tax revenues for the
preceding year without publishing notice in a newspaper that it is
considering a tax increase and holding a hearing for taxpayers to discuss
the increase; and  

_an explanation that a taxpayer who objects to increasing taxes and
government expenditures should complain to the governing bodies of the
taxing units and only complaints about value should be presented to the
appraisal office and the appraisal review board. 

Makes conforming and nonsubstantive changes.

Deletes existing Subsection (c), which requires that taxes imposed by a
unit in the preceding year on property not yet appraised and submitted to
the appraisal review board for the current year be excluded in making the
preliminary calculation of the effective tax rate. 
 
(c)  Redesignated from existing Subsection (d). 

Deletes existing Subsection (e), which requires that the chief appraiser
enclose certain information required by this section in a printed rectangle
of certain dimension in boldfaced type. 

(d)  Redesignated from existing Subsection (f).

(e)  Redesignated from existing Subsection (g).  Makes conforming changes.

Deletes existing Subsection (h), which requires the chief appraiser to list
the market value of the land and the total market value of the structures
and other improvement on the property separately in the notice of appraised
value for real property. 

(f)  Redesignated from existing Subsection (i).

(g)  Provides that a notice required by Subsection (a) or (f) must be in
the form of a letter. 


(h)  Redesignated from existing Subsection (j).  Makes conforming changes.

(i)  Redesignated from existing Subsection (k).  Makes conforming changes.

SECTION 2.  Effective date:  January 1, 2000.

SECTION 3.  Emergency clause.

EXPLANATION OF AMENDMENTS

Amendment 1.

Amends S.B. 694 in SECTION 1 (Section 25.19 (b), Tax Code) to restore the
language in existing Subdivision (3) ("the taxable value of the property in
the preceding year for each taxing unit taxing the property") as
information to be included in the notice and redesignating the remaining
subdivisions accordingly. 

Amends S.B. 694 in SECTION 1 (Section 25.19, Tax Code) to restore the
language in existing Subsection (h) ("in the notice of appraised value for
real property, the chief appraiser shall list separately: (1) the market
value of the land; (2) and the total market value of the structures and
other improvements on the property") and redesignating it as Subsection
(f). 

Amends S.B. 694 in SECTION 1 (Section 25.19, Tax Code) by adding a new
Subsection (g) to require the chief appraiser to include the market value
of each structure or improvement on the property, regardless of the date on
which the structure or improvement was erected or affixed to the land, in
the notice of appraised value for real property.  The amendment
redesignates the remaining subsections accordingly and makes conforming
changes.