Sales Tax v Property Tax

We watched the Texas gubernatorial debates last night and I’m really digging the independent candidate. Her platform includes a radical idea to eliminate property tax in lieu of sales tax. Now, already Texans pay 8.25% in sales tax, which is high but we technically don’t have a state income tax. Candidate Medina’s thinking is that property tax penalizes everyone, even people that don’t own property. If you’re a renter the property tax that the owner of that property is paying is ultimately passed on to the renter so I’d definitely agree with that. It’s a tax then on one of your most basic needs.


By leveraging a sales tax (and she cited 6-14% would be the final number, to be worked out by the legislation and it could be higher on certain products) then the tax burden is placed on those that purchase more, which is generally those that make more. I’m liking this idea!

I’m especially liking that as a consumer, I can choose to buy products online and avoid sales tax altogether (unless Obama changes that). I like that the tax burden is also distributed to people that travel here and spend money here. In Austin, we see a huge influx of sales tax paying patrons twice a year with our big music festivals. I think this definitely has potential to save the average Texan money by taxing on the back end instead of on the front end.

As a side note, candidate Medina also seems to understand that the role of government has gotten completely out of control on a state and national level and that we’re ignoring the structure of government originally defined in the Constitution.