May 19, 2004, 07:01 AM
Watching the trees grow....
State Senator Jon Lindsay agreed to appear on the Dan Patrick show a while back to discuss property taxes. The subject of Sen. Lindsay's ag exemption came up and I have links to where you can see the info for yourself online.
Note: I changed the time on this post so it would appear below Dan's Rule of 72 post.
Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt (hereafter Tax Man) has a web site where you can research your own tax records and see whether your payment has gone through, etc. Of course, if you want to look up someone else's tax records, you can do that too. This is public information, available to anyone. It helps finding others' records if the person has a unique name.
Fortunately for our research, there appears to be one Jon Lindsay in Harris County. He owns four pieces of property on the Tax Man's records, but we're only interested in two. These are the “tree farms.”
The first “tree farm” is almost 31 acres. It has a total appraised value of $467,040. The Senator has a Timber Productivity exemption of $456,230, which leaves him with a taxable value of $10,810. For 2003, he owed $87.65 in property taxes on these 31 acres, which he paid on time. If you'd like to see the record for yourself, you can click here. The Tax Man's web site also has a nice chart that shows you appraised value and taxes paid over time that you can see here.
The second “tree farm” is just over 17 acres. Its total appraised value is $187,310, the exemption is $181,290, taxable value is $6,020, so Sen. Lindsay paid $48.80 in taxes on that land for 2003. That info can be seen online here.
So, on a total of 48 acres, a total appraised value of $654,350, the total taxes paid are — $136.45.
As Dan has pointed out, Sen. Lindsay is not breaking any laws by taking this exemption. The basis for the Timber Productivity exemption can be found in the Texas Constitution:
Article 8 - TAXATION AND REVENUEAccording this paper (PDF file - 329 KB) I read this over at an Aggie web site:Section 1-d-1 - TAXATION OF CERTAIN OPEN-SPACE LAND
(a) To promote the preservation of open-space land, the legislature shall provide by general law for taxation of open-space land devoted to farm, ranch, or wildlife management purposes on the basis of its productive capacity and may provide by general law for taxation of open-space land devoted to timber production on the basis of its productive capacity. The legislature by general law may provide eligibility limitations under this section and may impose sanctions in furtherance of the taxation policy of this section.
(b) If a property owner qualifies his land for designation for agricultural use under Section 1-d of this article, the land is subject to the provisions of Section 1-d for the year in which the designation is effective and is not subject to a law enacted under this Section 1-d-1 in that year. (Added Nov. 7, 1978; Subsec. (a) amended Nov. 7, 1995.)
To qualify for an “agricultural or timber productivity ”valuation,the land must meet standards of “degree of intensity of use” set by the local appraisal district.These standards are based on the “typical” degree of intensive use within the appraisal district.The standards vary among counties because agricultural resources and uses differ across Texas.The Harris County Appraisal District provides these guidelines concerning the process of applying for an ag exemption in Harris County. If you're thinking about trying it, the minimum number of acres to get the Timber Productivity exemption is 10.
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