Is the Company Behind the Texas Bullet Train Behind on Paying Property Taxes?
The hits just keep on coming for Texas Central. Now a number of Texas counties contend that the company behind the planned 236-mile, Houston-to-Dallas highspeed rail line is behind on property taxes.
The allegation comes as both sides of the debate over whether or not to run a bullet train line through a swathe of rural Texas to connect the two metroplexes await the Texas Supreme Court’s decision on Miles vs. Texas Central. Jim Miles, the landowner behind the case, has taken his insistence that the company is not a railway and should not be allowed to use eminent domain rights to force Texas landowners to sell their property all the way to the high court, which heard the case back in January.
The fact that the court agreed to hear the case at all was a defeat for the company. The Texas Supreme Court had initially declined to weigh in on Miles vs. Texas Central last June before reversing that decision in October after Miles petitioned for a reconsideration.
Harris and a slew of other counties that are on the planned bullet train route have now filed an amicus brief before the court over more than $600,000 in property taxes from 2021. Ellis County noted in the brief that they had mistakenly given Texas Central tax breaks and that was the reason the company was late in their case. In the other cases, though, the counties are alleging that the company just hasn’t paid up yet.
Read more: https://www.houstonpress.com/news/texas-bullet-train-challenged-over-property-taxes-13134548