S.B. 725 78(R)    BILL ANALYSIS


S.B. 725
By: Wentworth
Local Government Ways and Means
Committee Report (Unamended)



BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE 

Current Texas law requires a chief appraiser, if the chief appraiser
discovers that real property 
was omitted from an appraisal roll in any one of the five preceding years
or personal property 
was omitted in one of the two preceding years, to appraise the property as
of January 1st of each 
year it was omitted and to enter the property and its value in the
appraisal records. Subsequently, 
a tax assessor-collector is required to calculate the tax for each year
and then a taxpayer would 
have 21 days to pay the back taxes. However, a taxpayer could be faced
with a situation where 
he or she is forced to pay five years of back taxes in 21 days. S.B. 725
addresses the issue of 
omitted property by extending the 21-day deadline for payment of taxes.

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any
additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or
institution. 

ANALYSIS

SECTION 1. Amends Section 31.04, Tax Code, by adding Subsection (a-1) and
amending 
           Subsection (e), as follows:

 (a-1) Provides that if a tax bill is mailed that includes taxes for one
or more preceding tax 
years because the property was erroneously omitted from the tax roll in
those tax years, the delinquency date provided by Section 31.02 is
postponed to February 1 of the first year that will provide a period of at
least 180 days after the date the tax bill is mailed in which to pay the
taxes before they become delinquent. 

 (e) Makes a conforming and nonsubstantive change.

SECTION 2. Amends Section 33.011(a), Tax Code, to require the governing
body of a taxing                 unit to waive penalties and to authorize
it to provide for the waiver of interest on a             delinquent tax
if the tax is paid not later than the 21st day after, rather than the
third           anniversary of, the date the taxpayer knows or should know
of the delinquency. 

SECTION 3. Makes application of Section 31.04, Tax Code, of this Act
prospective. 

SECTION 4. Effective date: September 1, 2003.


EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2003.