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Most Socorro ISD homeowners will get small tax refund, but some seniors will get bill for $10 [1]
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Date: 2024-12-06
While some 103,000 homeowners in the Socorro Independent School District will get a tax refund of about $25 after being overcharged by the district last year, another 13,000 will get a $10 bill.
That’s because some homeowners older than 65 with tax exemptions were undercharged during the 2023 tax year, said Andrew Kim, who was appointed by the Texas Education Agency to serve as a conservator of the troubled district.
“In the state of Texas, when you’re 65 and over, your taxes are frozen,” Kim said. “As a result of that, they had a small dollar amount that they had to pay because they got a break from the higher tax rate that was adopted in the fiscal year 2023.”
Homeowners who were undercharged will receive revised bills in February and March from the city of El Paso Tax Office. This comes after the El Paso City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved an agreement with the district for the city’s Tax Office to manage the refund and send out $2.3 million in checks to affected homeowners.
In November, the SISD school board approved a resolution to contract the city to identify properties that were overcharged, and calculate and manage the refunds.
SISD was not aware that some homeowners would get a revised bill instead of a refund until the city began calculating how the higher tax rate affected their bills.
“The district does not know which residential homes or taxpayers were frozen, levied or not, so we don’t have that data set. When the tax office ran that data set, that’s when we became aware of that situation,” Kim said.
SISD Chief Financial Officer David Solis said those homeowners will have 21 days to pay their tax bill. If it remains unpaid, the amount will appear on their 2025 tax bill as a delinquent balance and will be subject to interest fees.
“If those accounts have a tax referral, they’ll only incur a reduced interest at a rate of 5% per year. So, we do encourage taxpayers to apply for that tax referral with the appraisal district. Now, if they don’t have that tax referral, they’ll be subject to the standard penalties as an interest as outlined on the tax office website,” Solis said.
Delinquent tax bills get a 6% interest charge on the first month it is delinquent, plus 1% for each additional month, according to the city’s website.
SISD is expected to cover the cost of the refunds and the cost of processing them and mailing them out to homeowners. The district estimates it will cost about $90,000, Kim said.
Tax payments can be made online at the city’s website, in person at any El Paso County tax office or their main headquarters at 221 N. Kansas, by phone at 915-212-0106, or by mail to City of El Paso Tax Office, P.O. Box 2992, El Paso, TX 79999-2992.
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[1] Url:
https://elpasomatters.org/2024/12/06/sisd-property-tax-overcharge-refund-10-bill-undercharged-homeowners/
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