Sales tax on the 20th
Add the pieces and the sales tax rate in the city is 8.25 percent. Of that, 6.25 percent is the state's, 1 percent is the city's, and 1 percent is DART's. The county piece is absent, so the 8.25 percent is only the state, the city, and DART. DART has held its local piece since 1984. That month's sales report has to be in on the 20th of the month after.
A short week does not shrink the month. The report covers every day you were open and every day you were not, if sales happened. If you sell into more than one city, the rate does not follow every delivery by magic, and the books need to know which city got the sale. Knowing the rate does not close the month. Tying the deposits does. A month still open when the 20th is close is a month that cannot explain its own tax.
Property in April, with a May extension
The appraisal district wants the property report by the middle of April. Section 22.23 is the written request that moves the property report out of mid-April and into mid-May. A protest under section 41.44 lands on the later of mid-May and a month after the notice arrives. If you changed help in the spring, those days did not move with you. If one company owns property and another does not, the report follows the company that has the property. It does not get copied onto the quiet company to make a stack look complete.
We know White Rock Lake as the reservoir in the northeast, formed by damming White Rock Creek on its way to the Trinity, and we walk it the same weekends you do. We do not treat the lake as a tax form. We treat the 20th, April 15, and May 15 as the forms, and we get the books ready for those days. A walk around the water does not move a filing, and a company that sells that weekend still ties its own bank before the report goes out.
The franchise report in May
That report is covered on its own page because people skip the quiet company. Short version here. Report years 2026 and 2027 are due May 15, once per company. Under 2.65 million in revenue the tax itself is often zero, and the report is still filed. Retail and wholesale sit on the smaller state rate when franchise tax is actually owed, and every other business sits on the larger one. Those figures are 0.375 and 0.75. Read the longer version before you assume one filing covers two companies.
Put the date you are watching in the note. Name the date that is close. A sales month, a property report, or a franchise copy is plenty. The whole year does not have to be closed before you ask. The work in the week before the 20th is a different week from the work before the middle of May.
Weather does not move the calendar
A blue norther can drop the temperature under a dark sky between November and March, and we feel that freeze with you, more often than people along the Gulf do. A frozen week can delay a crew. We show the delay in the books. It does not delay the 20th, and the report still goes out. Hail is not an extension. An extension is a written request, and only where the statute allows one.
The city piece of that 8.25 percent is local code 2057011. The transit piece is local code 3057994. Those codes are how the Comptroller names the two local pieces. They are not a second rate stacked on the 8.25. Knowing the code still does not close the month. Tying the deposits does.
The school notice is a different piece of mail from the sales tax return and from the franchise report. The district covers about 82.99 percent of the blocks inside the city, counted from 2020 census blocks in the Comptroller school district workbook. For 2025 the school notice prices each 100 dollars of taxable value at 0.993835, split as 0.7518 for maintenance and operations and 0.242035 for interest and sinking. When that notice arrives we can read it with you. We keep it off the franchise report and off the sales tax return, because a school rate is not revenue and a revenue report is not a property notice.
