By LYNETTE HAALAND, Four Points News
A new Travis County Tax Office opened recently in Four Points at 8110 RM 620, near Home Depot at the Wilson Parke Drive intersection.
“I’m really thrilled it all worked out and it’s got a drive-through, it’s got everything that we needed for the satellite office,” Brigid Shea, Travis County Commission Pct. 2 which includes Four Points. “I have pushed for several years to find a suitable location for a satellite tax office in Northwest Travis County.”
This Northwest office brings Travis County services many many miles closer to local residents. This is Travis County’s fifth full-service site. Prior to this, Pflugerville and Bee Cave were the closest tax offices for residents of Four Points.
“This area has seen enormous growth and anybody who lives out here knows it. For a long time we have wanted to have a facility out here in the western part of the county but we had trouble finding (a location),” Shea said.
Travis County paid $2,300,535 for the property and it was purchased on February 1, 2022. Building renovations cost nearly $400,000 which went mostly into technology. The Travis County Commissioners Court approved purchasing the site in September 2021.
Ann Howard, Travis County Commission Pct. 3, shared that the site was available and affordable.
“It’s important because Travis County is big and we need to take services to where the people are,” Howard said. Her precinct is from downtown Austin to Jonestown. “We need to decentralize… Travis County is one thousand square miles.”
“This is a big deal for more than 350,000 residents in my precinct, many whom found themselves having to travel 20 to 30 miles to reach a tax office location,” Howard said.
The former Regions Bank site is more than 4,000-square-feet, has three-lanes for drive-thru service, five customer workstations in the lobby and seating for 42 people. It was built in 2005 and sits on 2.748 acres.
A ribbon cutting grand opening ceremony was held on October 6. Speakers included Commissioner Howard, Commissioner Shea, Travis County Facilities Director Roger El-khoury, and Bee Cave Mayor Kara King. Tax Assessor-Collector Bruce Elfant emceed the event.
“We are so excited about this new branch office,” Elfant said. “Since becoming tax assessor-collector in 2013, I was determined to provide a tax office location to serve the northwestern part of the county. Over the years as growth to the region has skyrocketed, the residents grew more vocal about the need for a local tax office branch.”
The Tax Office collects fees for a variety of state and local government agencies and registers voters – currently there are 878,485 registered voters in Travis County.
“Our constituents can come here to renew their vehicle registration, to transfer titles, get the disabled plates, pay the property taxes, register to vote,” Elfant said. “We encourage people who are able to go online to do these things.”
Currently at the site residents can take care of their vehicles and property but the hope is to expand services.
“The vision is more county services but that requires budget and staff and so we will grow into the site. It’d be great if you could get your passport renewed out here and stuff like that,” Howard said.
Branch hours are Mon.-Fri. 8 a.m.-3:30 p.m. for walk-ins, 8 a.m.-2:30 p.m. for drive-thru and 8 a.m.-4 p.m. for appointments. www.TravisCountyTax.org