Houston's $4.9B Tax Break Machine

Purpose

Tax incentive programs were designed to attract development and create affordable housing. This map shows every property enrolled across all four major programs — who benefits, how much revenue is forgone, and where the programs overlap.

Why It Matters

$4.89 billion in property value receiving tax incentives in a single county. The public loses an estimated $120M+ per year in uncollected revenue — while many of these properties charge market-rate rents.

Explore the Data

Methodology

PFC parcels from HCAD ArcGIS REST API (5 sponsor name queries). Chapter 312 and 380 from TX Comptroller open data CSVs, geocoded via Mapbox. LIHTC from HUD database filtered by FIPS county code 201 and credit type 2 (9%). All data combined into a single GeoJSON layer with program-specific popup details.

Citation