If you’ve ever protested your home’s value, received an appraisal notice, or wondered why one county office — not the state, not your school district — decides what your property is worth, you have a single 1979 law to thank: the Peveto Bill. It created the county appraisal districts and the Property Tax Code that still run the Texas property tax system today.
This is a deep dive into how that modern system was built. For the longer arc, start with our overview, The History of Texas Property Taxes, and the founding era in Texas Property Tax Origins: 1836 to the 1876 Constitution.
The mess before reform
The 1876 Constitution handed taxing power to local governments, and by the late 1970s that had produced chaos. The same house could be appraised three different ways — once by the county, once by the city, once by the school district — each with its own tax assessor and its own number. Some districts hadn’t reappraised property in years. Values often reflected politics and habit more than what a property would actually sell for, and taxpayers had little consistent recourse. It was duplicative, uneven, and ripe for favoritism.
1979: the Peveto Bill rewrites the rules
The fix came from the Legislature in 1979 with Senate Bill 621, named for its sponsor, Representative Wayne Peveto. Known as the “Peveto Bill,” it created the Texas Property Tax Code and rebuilt the system around three ideas that still define it:
- One appraisal district per county. A single central appraisal district (CAD) — a political subdivision of the state — would appraise every property in the county once, ending the duplicate appraisals by city, county, and school district.
- Market value, by professional standards. For the first time, the law required property to be valued at market value using generally accepted appraisal techniques — depoliticizing and professionalizing what had been a patchwork.
- A real appeals process. Property owners got a structured way to challenge their value before an independent citizen board.
The Property Tax Code took effect January 1, 1982, and 1982 was the first year taxes were levied on the appraisal districts’ values. That structure — one CAD per county, appraising at market value — is exactly what Texas property owners deal with today.
Your right to protest: the Appraisal Review Board
One of the most important things the reform gave taxpayers is the Appraisal Review Board (ARB) — a panel of locally appointed citizens, serving two-year terms, whose job is to resolve disputes between property owners and the appraisal district. If you think your appraised value is too high or your exemption was wrong, the ARB is where you make your case.
The Texas Comptroller doesn’t appraise your property or decide your protest, but it does set the guardrails: the Comptroller’s office writes the model hearing procedures that ARBs must adopt, helping keep the protest process consistent statewide. That oversight role is part of why the post-Peveto system is more uniform than the free-for-all it replaced.
What the Peveto Bill didn’t fix
Professionalizing appraisal made the system fairer and more consistent — but it didn’t address the deeper problem the 1876 Constitution baked in: enormous gaps in property wealth between school districts, and therefore in school funding. That fight moved to the courts in the 1980s and produced the “Robin Hood” recapture system. That’s the next chapter. (Deep dive coming soon.)
Put it to work on your own property
Every Texas county has its own appraisal district under the system Peveto built. See how the rates and taxing units stack up where you live, then take any value dispute to your local CAD’s appraisal review board:
Sources
- Collin Central Appraisal District — History of Texas Appraisal Districts
- Texas Legislative Reference Library — SB 621 (1979), the Peveto Bill
- Texas Comptroller — Appraisal Review Boards (ARB)
- Texas Comptroller — Appraisal Protests and Appeals
About these sources: the figures, dates, and legal references above are drawn from the authoritative sources listed and from official Texas records. Tax rates, exemptions, and laws change frequently — always verify the current figures for your property with your county appraisal district or the Texas Comptroller before making financial or legal decisions.