CADs: Don’t Approve New Tax Scheme

What is a County Assistance District (CAD)? To assist Texas counties with  funding public services, projects  and programs, the Texas Legislature granted all counties the authority to create county assistance districts and to adopt a local sales tax to finance these “important” public purposes. Under Chapter 387 of the Texas Local Government Code, a CAD allows a county commissioners court to call an election to levy a new local sales and use tax (up to 2%) to fund public safety, roads, and economic development.

Comptroller’s Office Explainer

CADs can impose a local sales and use tax(0.125%–2% in 0.125% increments), which raises the cost of taxable goods and services for residents to fund services like roads, law enforcement, parks, public health, tourism, and economic development. Because Texas sales tax is tied to the delivery address, a CAD increases the tax residents pay for online deliveries (such as Amazon purchases) shipped to their homes. This is one more inflationary act caused by government. When costs go up, businesses pass those down to the consumer.

Once again, government views your wallet as a solution for funding what they say you need.

Question: How well does your Commissioners Court manage the sales and property tax dollars they already extract from you? Don’t know? That’s a good enough reason to vote “NO.” If your county commissioners court doesn’t go the extra mile to keep taxpayers aware of how and why they spend your money, why would you hand them another way to deceive you?

Texans already feel as if they have little control over how their property is valued by county appraisal districts and how their tax dollars are spent by local commissioners courts, city councils, school boards and special taxing districts.

Without clear oversight, you should be concerned that CAD revenues could be used for services not widely supported or for projects with unclear benefits to taxpayers. CADs can be used to fund economic development.  

Question: Will this go to fund infrastructure for a company that will receive a corporate welfare tax abatement? If so, you’ll get hit twice as that business’s share of property taxes gets shifted to you! Forget the corporate welfare queens who say this “investment” will turn over seven times in your community.  I’ve heard that all my life and I’ve never seen the taxes of Joe and Jane taxpayer go down because of tax abatements.

• The Commissioner’s Court of the county that creates a district may serve as the governing body of the district. Alternatively, they may appoint a five-member board of directors to administer the district for staggered two-year terms.  

Questions: How happy are you with your tax bill now? Do you believe your County Commissioners Court provides the highest quality services at the very best price?  If you don’t, why would you vote to give them more?

• DO NOT vote for any plan that puts an  unelected board in charge of how your tax dollars will be spent!  This carries a great risk of handing the keys of a new political kingdom to special interests with conflicts of interest you’ll never know about! If your Commissioners Court wants to expand county spending power without creating direct voter accountability for the district’s operations, reject this scheme!

While CADs can fund roads, law enforcement, parks, public health, tourism, and economic development, be very skeptical about approving a CAD with an unknown scope of services and the potential for the district to expand into areas not aligned with local priorities.

You should also be concerned about how funds are allocated and whether they will be used efficiently.  

Question: What happens if sales tax collections fall and aren’t enough to cover the new projects funded by the CAD?  Texas law does not give CADs the power to levy debt on their own; their borrowing authority is limited to accepting grants, loans, and other approved funding sources. If a shortfall occurs, they can borrow money (which you will pay back with interest) or the Commissioners Court will need to cover the shortfall with property tax hikes.

If a proposed CAD includes municipal territory, cities can opt out by sending notice to the county commissioners court.  

Comptroller’s Office CAD Explainer

• Reaching the state tax cap: Texas law caps the total local sales tax rate at 2%. If a CAD absorbs the maximum available percentage, it permanently blocks other local entities from using that revenue space.

• Limiting Emergency Services Districts (ESDs): If a CAD claims the remaining sales tax capacity (up to 2%), local communities lose the ability to levy those sales taxes later to fund dedicated Emergency Services Districts for localized fire protection and EMS.

Question: Have all the local taxing entities in your county – including your rural ESDs, been brought into this discussion to determine the highest priorities?

• Reduced competitiveness: Retailers and businesses operating within the CAD’s boundaries must collect the higher tax rate. This can put them at a disadvantage against competitors in neighboring areas with lower tax rates.

• Administrative compliance: Businesses must adjust their point-of-sale systems to track and collect the new incremental tax, adding an administrative hurdle for small business owners.

Question: Have owners of small businesses in the affected areas been made aware of this new compliance and asked how they feel about it?

Foundational public services—such as road maintenance and law enforcement—should be managed out of the county’s existing general fund and property tax revenues rather than relying on a new taxing authority.

Question: If your local governments continue to raise their property tax rates, take on large amounts of debt, and recklessly spend, do you have any reason to believe they are producing the best results at the most cost‑effective price for taxpayers?  Then why would you ever give them more of your hard-earned money?

#MakeLimtedGovernmentGreatAgain
– just say “NO!”

For Liberty—the way our Founders intended

JoAnn Fleming
Executive Director
Grassroots America – We the People PAC

Joshua 1:9