2025 · Regular session · House bill
HB3486
HB3486 lets an owner of a qualifying food service establishment deduct $5 from taxable sales for every 100 Texas farm-raised oysters bought for preparation and service at that establishment.
Official caption: Relating to a deduction from the amount of taxable sales used to calculate the amount of sales and use taxes that the owners of restaurants that purchase Texas farm-raised oysters are required to remit to the comptroller of public accounts.
Official report lists House author(s): Hunter, Leo Wilson. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.
Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.
Bill highlights
Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.
- HB3486 lets an owner of a qualifying food service establishment deduct $5 from taxable sales for every 100 Texas farm-raised oysters bought for preparation and service at that establishment.
- This is a deduction from the sales amount on which tax is calculated, not a $5 reduction in tax owed.
- The Comptroller may require supporting information to check a deduction and may adopt implementing rules.
What does it do?
HB3486 lets an owner of a qualifying food service establishment deduct $5 from taxable sales for every 100 Texas farm-raised oysters bought for preparation and service at that establishment. The calculation applies to each establishment for which the taxpayer holds a sales-tax permit and to the applicable annual, quarterly or monthly reporting period. Qualifying oysters must be cultivated in Texas waters in accordance with state and federal regulations. Buying oysters in Texas alone is not enough. Final law
This is a deduction from the sales amount on which tax is calculated, not a $5 reduction in tax owed. For example, 1,000 qualifying oysters yield a $50 taxable-sales deduction, not a $50 tax credit. The Comptroller’s implementation summary confirms that the deduction comes from taxable sales reported on the return. Comptroller guidance
The Comptroller may require supporting information to check a deduction and may adopt implementing rules. The act uses the food-service-establishment definition incorporated through Health and Safety Code Section 437.001; it does not grant the deduction to every oyster buyer or every business selling food. It took effect October 1, 2025, after being signed June 20. Earlier tax liabilities and their enforcement remain governed by prior law. Official history
What changed along the way?
The introduced bill, House committee text and House-passed bill instead proposed a discount withheld directly from tax liability, with monthly or quarterly reporting. The Senate committee substitute changed that to the enacted taxable-sales deduction, added annual reporting and renumbered the new provision as Tax Code Section 151.433. The final law retains the Senate approach. Introduced text · Senate substitute · Text versions
The amendment index lists no separate floor amendments. That does not mean the bill was unchanged: the Senate amendments packet contains the committee substitute, and the House concurred on May 28. The substitute’s operative provisions match the enrolled law. Amendment index · Senate amendments packet
For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.
Official bill versions
Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.
Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?
Qualifying establishment owners can reduce their taxable sales. Texas oyster farmers could benefit if the incentive increases purchases, but the act guarantees neither additional orders nor higher prices. It does not require restaurants to pass the savings to diners. Owners claiming the deduction may need purchase records and other information requested by the Comptroller.
The final fiscal note estimates a $131,000 state general-revenue loss over fiscal years 2026–2027: $64,000 in 2026 and $67,000 in 2027. It anticipates no significant local-government fiscal effect. These are official estimates, not an appropriation or a promised saving for any business. The published fiscal notes retain the same estimates after the Senate changed the mechanism; their production-volume sentence also contains an apparent unit error. This explanation reports the attributed estimate without using that sentence as a reliable production statistic. Final fiscal note
Review boundary: This explains the enacted deduction and its legislative changes, not an individual taxpayer’s eligibility or return instructions. It does not prescribe rounding, a local-tax calculation or eligibility for a disputed kind of establishment. The statute and Comptroller summary control the deduction described here; no broader business categories are inferred from older food-safety rules.
Official sources
- Bill history and latest recorded action
- Bill versions, analyses and fiscal notes
- Action history and votes
- Amendment index
Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.
