Texas Constitutional Amendment Prop 4

Texas Constitutional Amendment Proposition 4 is listed as HJR 24. HJR 24 proposes a constitutional amendment that would allow the legislature to provide for an exemption from ad valorem taxation of part of the market value of the residence homestead of a partially disabled veteran or the surviving spouse of a partially disabled veteran if the residence homestead was donated to the disabled veteran at no cost to the veteran by a charitable organization.

The proposed amendment will appear on the ballot as:

This provision in itself isn’t that complicated, it is trying to plug a hole in existing tax exemptions for veterans. The Texas Constitution already allows exemptions for disabled and partially disabled veterans. Proposition 1 is related to property tax exemptions, to extend the exemptions to surviving spouses of members of the US armed forces killed in action. The existing exemptions cover fully disabled veterans, but not partially disabled veterans. HJR 24 appears to be extending the exemptions to partially disabled veterans, with the amount of exemption based upon the amount the veteran is disabled.

The part that is tripping me up is the part about donated residence homesteads. Are they saying that if a partially disabled veteran pays for a house, it is not exempt, but if the house is donated by a charitable organization, then it will be tax exempt?

Is the feeling that if the vet can afford to buy the house he is treated like all other home buyers, but if he cannot afford to buy the house and a house is donated, it would then allow the exemption for those economic hardships?

I want to make sure I understand the intent clearly.

I see proposed Texas Constitutional Amendments are a hot topic.

Possibly the idea is that if some disabled vet or their survivor gets a house donated to them, then presumably they’re impoverished and unable to afford property tax, so this is a way to not give them a white elephant.

That’s my understanding, I was just trying to make sure I’m reading it right.

Why amendment and not a law? Seems way too small an impact kind of thing to warrant an amendment.

How many Texans (unfamiliar with the amendment) read the thread title then exhaled in relief when reading the OP?

The Texas Constitution is rather peculiar, since it dates from the Reconstruction era government, and requires amendments for all sorts of piddly and petty things.

Oregon’s is the same way for the opposite reason: because basically anybody can get an amendment on the valid with a sufficient number of signatures, the Oregon constitution is more riddled with amendments than a Texas small-town stop sign has bullet holes. It’s intended to be easy to amend, a reflection of a simpler and less partisan time (that probably never existed…).

The Texas Constitution seems to not allow property tax exemptions unless they’re in the Constitution:

http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/CN/htm/CN.8.htm#8.1