Homeowners in Sugar Land will experience an offset to their property tax bills with a larger portion of their home values now exempt. On June 28, Sugar Land City Council unanimously passed a 2 percent increase to the homestead tax exemption from 8 percent of a home’s taxable value to 10 percent of the value . “Basically you’re taking 10 percent of the taxable value off your home,” Sugar Land Finance Director Jennifer Brown said at a June 21 city council meeting. The 10 percent exemption applies to the 2016 tax year, which began Jan. 1. Brown said preliminary figures show an average 7 percent increase in home valuations from 2015 to 2016, but final numbers have not been released yet because homeowners have time to protest their assessments. Final numbers are expected to be certified in late July, Brown said. “The [home] values increase so we’re increasing the amount of that exemption,” Brown said. As an example, a property tax bill for a $300,000 house in Sugar Land in 2016 would be $912.78, accounting for a 7 percent increase in home value and a 10 percent homestead exemption. That would represent an overall $40.76 increase from a 2015 tax bill of $872.02. If the council had maintained the 8 percent homestead exemption for the 2016 tax year, however, the 2016 tax bill would be $933.06, or $61.04 more than the bill in 2015. Brown said the homestead exemption is allowed to be a minimum of 7 percent of a home’s taxable value and a maximum is 20 percent of the value. Prior to 2007, the city adjusted the tax rate to control residents’ taxes, but since 2008 has increasingly relied upon the homestead exemption to offset increasing property tax bills, according to a city report on the homestead exemption. The 2015 tax rate was $0.31595 per $100 of assessed home valuation, and Brown said the city expects it to remain the same for 2016. It could change, however, if the council wants to adjust it, she said. Sugar Land City Manager Allen Bogard said at the June 28 council meeting that the homestead exemption provides targeted relief to homeowners. “If you lower the tax rate, there is no distinction between commercial or residential,” Bogard said. “If you increase the homestead exemption, you are benefitting residential over commercial.”