Council warned legislative exemptions and appraisal errors have reduced Whitehouse's tax base

Staff told the council that recent changes in state law and appraisal adjustments are the principal drivers complicating this year's tax-rate calculation. "House Bill 9, which increased business personal property tax exemptions from 25,000 to a 125,000. That resulted in $10,000,000 of value no longer being on the tax rolls," staff said.

Staff also said the city saw a large value swing between preliminary and certified rolls—about $53,000,000—because commercial-lease value was previously misallocated to Whitehouse rather than spread across jurisdictions in Smith County. That mismatch, together with extended protest windows, left roughly $2,100,000 shown as under protest and excluded from the statutory rate calculation, staff said.