1-1           By:  Patterson                                   S.B. No. 492

 1-2           (In the Senate - Filed February 7, 1997; February 12, 1997,

 1-3     read first time and referred to Committee on Finance;

 1-4     March 3, 1997, reported favorably by the following vote:  Yeas 10,

 1-5     Nays 0; March 3, 1997, sent to printer.)

 1-6                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

 1-7                                   AN ACT

 1-8     relating to the cancellation and removal from the delinquent tax

 1-9     roll of an ad valorem tax on certain real property.

1-10           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

1-11           SECTION 1.  Subsection (c), Section 33.05, Tax Code, is

1-12     amended to read as follows:

1-13           (c)  If there is no pending litigation concerning the

1-14     delinquent tax at the time of the cancellation and removal, the

1-15     [The] collector for a taxing unit shall cancel and remove from the

1-16     delinquent tax roll:

1-17                 (1)  a tax on real property that has been delinquent

1-18     for more than 20 years; [or]

1-19                 (2)  a tax on personal property that has been

1-20     delinquent for more than 10 years; and

1-21                 (3)  a tax on real property that has been delinquent

1-22     for more than 10 years if the property has been owned for at least

1-23     the preceding eight years by a home-rule municipality in a county

1-24     with a population of more than two million [if there is no pending

1-25     litigation concerning the delinquent taxes at the time of the

1-26     cancellation and removal].

1-27           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the

1-28     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

1-29     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

1-30     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

1-31     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,

1-32     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its

1-33     passage, and it is so enacted.

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