From the Chron:
Business tax breaks cost Texas $4.3 billion in the last state budget, a figure that amounts to about a third of the state's massive revenue shortfall, according to a legislative report obtained on Friday by the Associated Press.
The report also found that local governments lost $235 billion in state property tax exemptions, including those given for elderly and disabled homeowners, according to the report prepared by the House Ways and Means Committee. A tally for sales tax exemptions - the state's biggest cash generator - was not available.
One of the largest carve-outs was for the natural gas tax, which totaled about $1 billion a year in exemptions, according to the report. An exemption for bottled water sales amounted to a loss of about $250 million a year for the state, while an exemption for corporations with business interest in solar energy devices cost more than $1 million over the last two years.
