Harris County tax assessor explains new notices, homestead changes and rural land revaluation

Shelley, the county's chief tax appraiser, told the Harris County Board of Commissioners on July 1 that tax notices mailed June 24 reflect two recent state law changes and a rural land revaluation the assessor's office completed this year.

Shelley said the notices no longer show an estimated total tax because House Bill 581 removed the tax estimate from the assessment notice and a later cleanup bill, House Bill 92, allowed taxing jurisdictions to decide whether to include an estimated millage; the change and other omissions (sanitation fees and school bond amounts) have caused taxpayer confusion.

The presentation matters to homeowners because HB581 establishes a "floating" homestead exemption tied to inflationary growth: when a homesteaded property's fair market value increases, the office must add that inflationary growth to the statutory homestead exemption (the standard homestead exemption used in the examples was $4,000). Shelley used three hypothetical houses to show how the exemption can rise where values increased, and emphasized that for most homesteaded homes of 5 acres or less, net taxes "will not be higher this year than they were last year" despite…