Dallas Real Estate Baron Gene Phillips Hasn't Paid Taxes on His $25 Million Estate Since 2005
Gene Phillips isn't the type of homeowner the Texas Legislature had in mind when it passed a law in 1979 allowing senior citizens to indefinitely defer their property taxes. Think instead of an ailing grandmother, whose Social Security check wouldn't stretch quite far enough to cover groceries and property taxes, weeping bitterly as her home is sold on the courthouse steps.Google Earth Gene Phillips' modest Preston Hollow homestead.
"Essentially the law was kind of designed to avoid people over 65 being forced from their homes [by tax foreclosure]," says Charles Gilliland, a professor at Texas A&M University's Real Estate Center.
That hasn't stopped Phillips, a wealthy real estate investor with a 16-acre spread next door to George W. Bush and Tom Hicks in Preston Hollow, from taking advantage. According to Dallas County tax records, he hasn't paid any property taxes on his $25.7 million estate since 2005. His total outstanding balance -- money that under ordinary circumstances would be going to fund Dallas schools, cops, libraries and Parkland Hospital -- is $3.3 million. And all he had to do was file a tax-deferral affidavit with the Dallas County Appraisal District swearing that he's over 65, and his 18,000-square-foot home is his homestead, and he doesn't want to pay taxes on it right now.
More »