Watch Where You Pay Your Taxes

The Texas Supreme Court recently decided that if a taxpayer pays his property taxes in the wrong county because of a boundary dispute between two different counties, the taxing entity who was supposed to get the tax dollars can't sue to recover the erroneous payments collected by another county.

Now, the opinion says that the Counties can't fight it out in court under the doctrine of sovereign immunity. One county can't sue the other. What is not decided is whether the taxpayer has to pay twice - once to the County that didn't deserve the taxes, and once to the County who did deserve the taxes, but can't collect them from the other county.

Double Taxation sounds wrong on quite a few levels, but when the taxpayer gets sued, I'm not sure his receipt for payment from another county amounts to any defense at all. If you pay in error, you might be entitled to a refund, but I wouldn't bet on it.

If you think this is a weird and unusual situation, you ought to look at the map for school districts and other taxing entities in Texas. If you think that you don't live near a boundary line, you might find that you do, and that this problem is more real than you thought.