Business Tax Advisor Houston. April, May, and July stay with the books.

Three rows inside one sale.

On a sale inside the city, add the rows and you land on 8.25 percent. The state row is 6.25 percent. The city row is 1 percent. The Houston METRO row is 1 percent. Harris County puts nothing on that sale, so the local piece people notice is the METRO row.

Member cities carry that same METRO row. West University Place, Missouri City, Katy, Humble, and Bellaire are on that list. Step across the city line and the METRO piece can disappear, so check the job address before you memorize one rate.

Write all three pieces into the books the day the deposit lands. Leave out the city piece or the METRO piece and a later report is the first time anyone sees them.

The property list, then the state report.

April is when most Harris County business property lists are due at the Harris Central Appraisal District. The list is its own filing. The district will take that list in May if you send a letter asking for the extra days. An online rendition means the list does not have to be a drive across town.

From Katy into downtown, Interstate 10 is the freeway drivers call the Katy Freeway. A job along that drive can sit in more than one county, and the address picks the appraisal office.

Parts of the city sit in Fort Bend and in Montgomery. Each of those counties runs its own appraisal office. There is still only one Texas franchise report, and May is when it has to leave. It is calculated from months that are already closed.

If a later letter asks for a signed report, we name that part and point it outward. The dates themselves can still be prepared with the books.

July shows who still answers.

By the first of July the Houston Permitting Center impact fee had already risen, and contractors had already priced jobs against that higher number. A bid that still carries the earlier fee will not match a job built after the change. Mark each job in the books as priced before that rise or after it.

A clinic on the Texas Medical Center campus and a shop past Hermann Park can share one close, with Brays Bayou and Rice University between them, and both files still mark the July fee.

July is also the month that shows who still answers. We pick up on the phone. Neither the Comptroller nor the appraisal district scores the building a quote came from. The list starts moving once someone is on the phone.

When April, May, and July live on the bookkeeping file, they stop arriving as surprises. Repair stays with the old year. The open month gets its close while the deposits are still familiar. May was already printed on the franchise calendar.