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As the battle for more property tax relief wages on, Senate Bill 1126 has been proposed in the Texas Legislature, aimed at providing much-needed relief to disabled veterans. While 100% disabled veterans don't pay any property tax, other veterans with lower disability ratings do.
Jeff Addicott, a veteran, attorney, and Director of the Warrior Defense Project, explained how the system works, saying, "If you're in the category of 16% disabled to 90% disabled, the relief is not very much. It's $12,000 off the assessed value of your property."
Addicott pointed out that this means if a veteran's home is worth $300,000, that veteran could still wind up paying property tax on $288,000 of that home's value. And as the value of that home and property taxes continue to rise, so do veterans' bills.
He went on to say that SB 1126, which is being carried by State Senator Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston), creates a much more common-sense system that better protects our veterans. He explained the proposed system, saying, "If you're 100% disabled, you still get the 100% disability property tax relief. If you're 90%, you get 90%; if you're 80%, you get 80%, all the way down the line to 10%."
Addicott says we owe it to our wounded warriors to make sure that they have tangible, lasting property tax relief, and this system should have been updated a long time ago. He added that this could go a long way toward preventing veterans from being forced out of their homes due to rising property tax bills.