First off, yes, I’m aware that property taxes generally fund things like government schools, police, fire, and EMS. What I’m wondering, though, is where all the additional money is going.
What additional money? Oh, boy.
Property taxes are assessed based on the value of your property, and every owner is forced to pay them. Everyone is also aware of the steep increase in the cost of housing since COVID-19. Government handouts, red tape, and low interest rates factored into why housing prices have skyrocketed since 2020. It’s also a big reason why affordability is such a massive topic in American political discourse right now.
But while everyone is talking about the frustration with high housing costs (and they’re justified in that anger), nobody seems to be talking about how that’s affected property taxes. If the cost of owning a home has jumped since COVID-19, so have property taxes, and so has the government revenue from them. Just how much that revenue has jumped is, frankly, unbelievable.
Let’s take a look at Dallas County, Texas. Just as COVID-19 was hitting, Dallas County collected approximately $597 million in property tax revenue in fiscal year 2019-20. This was before the crazy real estate boom. Just five years later, in fiscal year 2024-25, the Dallas County property tax revenue soared to approximately $829 million. In just five years, that is a 39% tax revenue increase on Dallas homeowners.
Now, the honest caveat is inflation. Everyone also knows that in the years after the Fauci Fever, inflation hit 40-year highs. And any communist who wants to tax the existence out of every homeowner will be quick to chalk the increase up to that.
However, relative to the U.S. Consumer Price Index, which rose about 24% over the same period, the 39% tax increase in Dallas County works out to about 12% more in real terms. In other words, after inflation, Dallas County has increased taxes on residents by an additional 12%.
Rising property values did the work. Just math.
For reference, that works out to about $87 million in additional money for the Dallas County bureaucrats. And while I’m sure there are frustrated Dallas homeowners who are seeing the cost of their property taxes go up, unfortunately the outrage tends to end at that frustration. Seemingly nobody is asking… OK, what the hell is the government doing with that extra income?
Dallas is not alone. Counties across the country have taken in a windfall of new money over the last five years, and taxpayers should be asking what they’re getting in return. My guess is probably nothing. And that should infuriate you.
Get more of Jobob’s perspective on today’s most important stories on Turning Point Tonight, which airs Monday through Friday evenings on Real America’s Voice.
