Who is the Texas tax man?

If you ask who collects property taxes in Texas, the answer is simple. It is not the State of Texas. School districts, cities, counties, and other local taxing entities collect property taxes.

But if the question is who controls the property tax system, the answer gets more complicated.

That question has been on my mind as a newspaper editor running local tax notices, and it's back in the statewide political conversation. We talk about property taxes as though there is one tax man, and the argument becomes whether he lives at City Hall or at the Capitol.