Comptroller Projects $4.33 Trillion Texas Tax Base as Value Growth Slows

Statewide taxable property value in Texas will reach an estimated $4.33 trillion in 2026, up 5.07% from $4.12 trillion in 2025, Comptroller Don Huffines’s office reported September 30. The estimates, required under the Texas Education Code, support budgeting for the 2028-29 biennium.

The 2025 figure stands out. It marks “the first time in more than a decade that year-over-year taxable values have remained essentially unchanged,” the office said. The estimates reflect the voter-approved increase in the school district homestead exemption to $140,000, a temporary 20% appraisal cap on certain non-homestead property, and adjustments to exemptions for income-producing tangible personal property.

Growth is projected to stay modest: 2.53% in 2027 and 5.66% in 2028, below the 6% to 10% annual increases Texas saw in recent years. Huffines asked the Legislature to keep cutting. “I encourage the Legislature to continue providing meaningful property tax relief to Texas property owners,” he said, so that “Texans are not asked to absorb rising tax burdens during a period when affordability pressures on housing remain elevated.”

The same day, Huffines signed an executive order to end a tax on marketplace fees. In 2025, the office under its previous leadership read the state’s data processing tax to cover the fees sellers pay platforms such as Amazon and Etsy, the fees restaurants pay delivery apps, and the platform fees tied to ride-hailing and short-term rentals, on top of any sales tax on the purchase itself. The Legislature created the data processing tax in 1987.

“A Comptroller doesn’t get to invent new taxes by rulemaking any more than a judge gets to invent new crimes that aren’t on the books,” Huffines said. His order directs the agency to propose an amendment to Rule 3.330 removing marketplace and platform fees from the definition of taxable data processing. The proposal will be published in the Texas Register, followed by a 30-day public comment period.

Both moves were made in Austin, under Texas law, about what Texans pay their own governments. How much relief comes next, and how it is paid for, are decisions the Legislature will make in 2027 at its own Capitol.