non profit harris county. property taxes. taxpayers for equal appraisal.real property.

HCADTEA.ORG is a non-profit organization established to help you understand how to protest your property taxes, both real property and business property, so that you can save money. In a perfect world, your property would be taxed fairly and uniformly. We are here to help you understand how property taxes are set, both in Houston and Harris County, Texas, the State of Texas, and, in fact, all over the United States.

Spring, 2002

Set out below are stories by date of occurrence which will interest you, the property taxpayer in Harris County, about activities at HCAD:
The is a continuation of a brief history of some of the public and private statements of HCAD’S current general counsel and at the same time, the second in command of HCAD’s entire operation, Sands Littlefield Stiefer (S.L.S.):

Excerpts:

continued from previous page.....

…But I think we saw with Enron that even with the best legal advice, even with the best accountants you can buy, you can still be doing wrong.

…If you are conducting a hearing on one of the members’ property, you need to put them through absolutely the same thing you would put any taxpayer through. By the same token, if you are wanting to protest you own property, you need to expect and ensure that you don’t get any better treatment than anybody else does, because it’s ….I cannot express how important that is to you.

…. About three years ago, we had reached a point where it was taking so much time to do the protest hearings that we were literally not able to do what we needed to do in the field during the year.

…It was causing a crisis that we couldn’t do our job.

…It is so tempting I know for you when you have a property owner there to want to make that property owner feel happy with what you have decided…To get to know him all that kind of stuff. You absolutely have to remember, you’ve got thousands of hearings to do in the course of the year. We had 160,000 protests last year. We resolved most of those informally but still you had a far bigger docket last year than you have ever had before. We have every expectation that that is going to be the case again this year and I, I ask you, I plead with you, control that docket. Move those hearings along so that the taxpayer who is front of you, doesn’t get a free ride, and an extra 20 minutes at the cost of all the other taxpayers that you have to handle. I know that you can do it. The Board has done an incredible job.

…Some of the things we are going to do, we are going to be doing some hearings without files this year so that we don’t’ have problems with lost files.

…I will be happy to answer any questions…

Note: the ARB audience asked no questions.

What is the taxpayer's role?

You can play an effective role in the process.....
if you know your rights, understand the remedies available to you, and fulfill your responsibilities.

Taxpayers for Equal Appraisal Access Information! Taxation must be equal and uniform!

Property taxes must be equal and uniform. Protesting taxes must be a fair and equitable process. All property must be valued and taxed equally and uniformly.

Taxpayers for Equal Appraisal Access Information!
Taxation must be equal and uniform!

Property taxes must be equal and uniform.
Protesting taxes must be a fair and equitable process.
All property must be valued and taxed equally and uniformly.