EL PASO, Tx., December 4, 2025: As we reported in part one of our special report about El Paso’s property taxes, there are 43 taxing entities in El Paso. How much a property owner pays in taxes depends on the location of their property. Nonetheless, El Pasoans pay one of the highest property tax rates in Texas. The reason has largely to do with a narrow tax base that depends on the homeowner because El Paso has a limited commercial and industrial tax base leaving the burden on the homeowners.
In 2023, single-family homes accounted for around $49 billion of the total value of properties in El Paso. Commercial properties, including oil, gas and utilities, accounted for around 31.3% of the property tax base in the city during the same period. Apartment complexes and other multi-family homes were valued at around $3.2 billion. Texas business owners also paid property taxes on their inventory and office furniture, including signs, for an additional $4 billion.
However, on November 4, Texas voters overwhelmingly voted on several tax reforms including adding a $250,000 tax exemption to business owners on their business properties, further reducing the commercial taxbase.
According to the El Paso Central Appraisal District 2024 annual report, El Paso’s total property values, including homes, commercial and business inventories was $91.7 billion. Much of the tax base is homeowners. When the amount of land that is tax exempt is factored in, the problem of high taxation becomes clearly understood – a structural tax problem.
A Narrow Commercial Tax Base
Homeowners not only contribute the most towards the almost $92 billion in the city’s tax base but the second highest source of property taxes, the commercial sector, is made up of low taxable properties. Instead of value industries like finance, technology or advanced manufacturing, El Paso’s commercial properties are low value industries like retail, warehousing and logistics. Even when El Paso leaders incentivize high-technology industries like the recent META AI datacenter, they do so on a development that not only overtaxes the water supply but pays lower property taxes through incentivization and leased property like computers that are not taxed like owned property.
What is worse is that the META datacenter is not only a low-tax producing property but it has a narrow and limited impact on the labor force because their job needs are offset through automation.
The low taxable value commercial sector is made worse by the large amounts of nontaxable properties that use land in El Paso. Examples are present in most parts of El Paso in the properties owned by the school districts, the medical clinics owned by the University Medical Center of El Paso, UTEP and the federal properties like Ft. Bliss. These large swatches of land remove thousands of acres from the property tax rolls and pay no property taxes further burdening the local homeowners. The water utility, through the Public Service Board (PSB) also own lots of prime acreage that does not pay taxes. The PSB land is blocked from development by the PSB on the argument that the water beneath the land is needed. The problem, though, is that on one hand the PSB says it has enough water for the META datacenter, while on other hand it needs to keep large parcels of land off the tax rolls because it needs the land.
Making matters worse for the homeowners is the fragmented governance found in the city. Take for example, the school districts. There are nine school districts in El Paso, each with their own services like information technology or building and maintenance. Combining them into one school district would allow them to leverage economies of scale, reducing costs to the taxpayers.
Consolidation has been shown to work, and the benefits far outweigh any negative aspects.
The solution to the high taxes is a consolidated metroplex for El Paso. A metroplex would leverage the regional approach that business owners have been advocating and the job development proponents have been working on. Consolidation would solve El Paso’s high taxes.
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