SANDY OAKS SETS ZERO TAX RATE

Staff Writer

SANDY OAKS—The newly incorporated City of Sandy Oaks has set a zero property tax for its first year budget becoming the first city in Bexar County to achieve zero property taxes. 

    During the incorporation process Sandy Oaks leaders  expressed their desire to model themselves after Von Ormy and structure themselves  as a consumption tax funded city. 

     City leaders rejected a proposal to begin operations at $0.39 per $100 valuation and opted to set a zero tax rate. 

     "Texas' local property tax burden ranks as the 15th highest in the nation," said James Quintero, head of the Center for Local Governance at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.  "This immense and unnecessary tax burden hurts everyone, from our friends and neighbors struggling to make ends meet to our elderly living on fixed incomes to our community's businesses trying to stay afloat," Quintero said.

    WOAI reported, “Contrary to the fiction that it is the wealthy that want to keep taxes low, Sandy Oaks Mayor Jim Clement, says he pushed for the 'zero property tax' option because 52% of his community's population is below the poverty line, and low income people are helped the most by low taxes.”