Commissioners approve increase in proposed tax rate

Submitted by Willspoint1 on
By David Barber Senior Reporter

In a 4-1 vote, the Van Zandt County Commissioners Court approved a proposed tax rate for the new fiscal year Aug. 22 that exceeds the preceding year’s rate as well as the effective and rollback tax rates.

The proposed property tax rate for the 2017-‘18 fiscal year which begins Oct. 1, 2017, and concludes Sept. 30, 2018, is $.615847 per $100 valuation which exceeds the rollback rate requiring two public hearings prior to the final adoption of the proposed tax rate.

The first public hearing will be at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 5 and the second hearing is scheduled for 6 p.m., Friday, Sept. 8. Both public hearings will take place in the VZC Courthouse.

Information released by the commissioners’ court showed that the preceding year’s tax rate was $.58547.

The effective tax rate is .552805 while the rollback tax rate is $.587864, according to the commissioners’ court.

Commissioners shared that the effective tax rate ($.552805) is the total tax rate needed to raise the same amount of property tax revenue for VZC from the same properties in both the 2016 and 2017 tax years.

The rollback tax rate ($.587864) is the highest tax rate that VZC may adopt before voters are entitled to petition for an election to limit the rate that may be approved to the rollback rate.

VZC Judge Don Kirkpatrick, who voted against the proposed tax rate, and all four VZC commissioners (Brandon Brown, Pct. 1; Virgil Melton Jr., Pct. 2; Keith Pearson, Pct. 3 and Tim West, Pct. 4), who voted in favor, commented on the decision to raise the proposed tax rate before casting their publicly recorded votes.

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