Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s property tax bill inaccurately depicted

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's property tax bill dropped 14 percent over the last two years largely because of factors that involved no action on his part and a tax break available to all Texas homeowners.

Last week, the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News reported on their websites that Patrick had benefited from an unusually large reduction in the tax bill on his Montgomery County home in 2017 and 2018.

That Feb. 8 article ("Property tax crusader Dan Patrick can't complain about his own bill") incorrectly reported some of the details.

New information makes it clear Patrick's taxes dropped because he took advantage of the state's homestead exemption, market values dipped in his neighborhood and county tax officials corrected an over-estimate of the size of his home.

The homestead exemption reduces the taxable value of a person's principal residence. It is available to all Texans. Patrick applied for it in 2018, the year after he purchased his home on Lake Conroe.

The Chronicle and Express-News relied in part on information about the homestead exemption for Patrick's property that was listed on the website of the Montgomery County Tax Office. The information turned out to be erroneous, and the office has since corrected it.

Another portion of the reduction in Patrick's tax bill stemmed from a separate error in tax records, which overstated the size of his home by 500 square feet. The Montgomery County Appraisal District discovered the error when reviewing the previous owner's sales listing. Once the error was confirmed and corrected, the taxable value of the home, and thus Patrick's tax bill, declined.

An additional factor was a decline in market values in his neighborhood. Most of Patrick's neighbors have also seen the taxable values of their homes drop over the past two years.

Even so, the assessed value per square foot of Patrick's home remains higher than that of many of his neighbors.

The two newspapers have removed the Feb. 8 article from their websites. The Chronicle and the Express-News regret the errors.