Accounting Firms Houston AlternativeDates that belong in the books

The sales tax stack

Inside the city, sales tax often stacks to 8.25 percent. Split that 8.25 and the pieces are the state's 6.25, the city's 1, and Houston METRO's 1. Harris County leaves that stack alone, because the extra local room is already the METRO row.

Houston METRO also covers Bellaire, Humble, Katy, Missouri City, and West University Place. A sale in one of those cities can carry the same extra row. A sale outside that map can carry a different local row. The address decides. The street address of the sale, not the city name by itself, is what tells us which local row belongs in the books.

April, May, and what the federal return skips

The business property list for Harris County usually goes to the Harris Central Appraisal District in April. Owners list what the business owns, and a written request can move that list to May. People mix this list up with the federal return. Sending that return does not file the list.

May is also when the Texas franchise report has to be filed. The two dates share a season and they are not the same filing. If your property sits in Fort Bend or Montgomery instead of Harris, the list has a different home. We ask before we put a Harris date on your year.

A fee that changed, with no dollar figure here

The Houston Permitting Center impact fee changed on the first of July 2026. If you pull permits, that change belongs in the job cost, not as a surprise in a later month. This page does not quote the fee. The point is to put the real invoice in the month it happened.

A company that builds, and a company that only sells, do not share that date. We will not hang a permitting note on a set of books that never pulls a permit.

The rings around downtown

People mark the old core by saying inside the Loop. Beltway 8 is the next ring out, and the paid main lanes are a tollway run by the Harris County Toll Road Authority. We are all Texans, so those two rings are names we can all picture. A sale inside the Loop and a sale out on that ring can carry different local rows. The books should say which one you mean.

June through November is hurricane season. A roofer along the bayous, or a shop that boards up when a storm is named, keeps that window on the same calendar as sales tax. A loud week still gets its close. The spike is named. It is not skipped because the week was loud.

A loud month still gets a close

We can all appreciate the rodeo. Every Texan knows the March run, and hotels and restaurants feel it. That busy month is still closed on the usual day. A Ship Channel week does the same thing to deposits. The close names the spike. Financial clarity is a closed month you can explain. The dates above are part of that explanation. They are not a separate calendar product.

How you send the address

You send the address of the sale or the property, and we put the right date in the books. The rows follow that address, and a closed month is how you know which date has already been handled.

Reconciliations and the return stay beside those same dates, so a finished month shows which filing is already done.

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