We Think The Travis County Tax Office Is Almost Unreasonably Pleasant

Austin residents have many occasions to visit the Travis County Tax Office, most of them related to various painful monetary procedures. The bloodletting starts at property taxes, expands to vehicle registration (where you are charged $3.00 extra for using your credit card) and veers into more benign (if dull) territories with services related to vehicle titles, voter registration, and other hallmarks of democracy that are nonetheless stultifying.

Given that a government agency like the Tax Office could and usually is as staid and sad as a Soviet playground, it's worth noting that the Travis County Tax Office is breezy, comfortable, and that doing business there is perplexingly quick and painless.

We called the Tax Office and spoke to Public Information and Training Director Tiffany Seward, who gave us the current location's background. The Tax Office moved from 1010 Lavaca in the fall of 2003 to 5501 Airport, into a building that was previously a Builder's Square. At the time the Office had furniture stores as neighbors, but those spaces now house the County Clerk and Sheriff’s Offices. Hypothetically, you can pay your property taxes, get married, and then take advantage of the Sheriff's Office “Free Car Seat Inspections” all in one glorious trip.

Architecture and design play a big part in making a visit to the Tax Office less soul-destroying than new visitors might expect. The row of buildings that make up “taxation row” on Airport [no one calls it this] are well equipped for a rush of bodies at any given moment, but the anteroom and physical space of the Tax Office rarely feels crowded (they get somewhere around 2,000 visitors daily) or even very busy. The cubicles that separate the various desks allow for movement and privacy both, the exposed ceiling gives the place a kind of factory-chic ambiance, and the overall happily geometric design scheme is attractive without being showy. Again, this is far removed from the “beige hollowed-out nursing home sitting area w/whiff of despair” aura that you'll find at most government offices.

The Facilities Management department in Travis County put us in touch with Jim Barr, [AIA, LEED AP] Senior Project Manager, who surprised us with the information that the design of the Tax Office building was all done “in-house.” “We do a lot of the country's architecture that costs less two or three million dollars...in that range,” he says. As for the specifics of the design, Barr said “we wanted it to be open and kind of cheerful...a place that the public would enjoy going to as much as they can.”

The people on Yelp have also noticed the Tax Office's relative admirable qualities, and the department has an unusually high four star cumulative average (out of 32 votes). User Michael E. praised the staff and then concluded his five-star review with an homage to the bathroom: “The hand towel dispensers were actually FULL, too! What more could one ask for in a government facility?!!?!” Says user Dawn M. - “It almost pains me to write this, but I had the most efficient experience at the Travis County Tax Office today.” And finally, user James L. opines, “How the eff can I be a fan of taxes? well I guess it funds the things we don't think about, but this place is efficient and good at least in my experience.”

Our Tax Assessor-Collector up until the beginning of this year was Nelda-Wells Spears, who retired after twenty years working with the County. The Commissioner's court appointed Tina Morton to serve out the rest of Spears' term, and this year voters will pick a new Tax Assessor-Collector to start in 2013. The race has already begun, with various candidates starting to stump via YouTube, etc. Here's an ad for Democrat Stanley J. Wilson.