Less than four months before Floridians vote on a proposal to phase out property taxes for homeowners, there’s no organized campaign seeking to move the measure past the 60% vote required for passage.
The biggest advocate for property tax relief, Gov. Ron DeSantis, said two weeks ago that he won’t lead any organized effort because the property tax measure the Legislature approved in a special session in June “wasn’t my proposal.”
That’s in contrast to his robust efforts two years ago, when he formed a political committee to lead campaigns against legalizing recreational cannabis and abortion rights, neither of which were successful.
Meanwhile, three groups, most recently a political committee called Floridians for Shared Prosperity, have formed to oppose what will be listed as Amendment 3 on the November ballot. The groups contend passage of the measure would devastate local governments’ budgets. Cities and counties would lose $5 billion in tax revenue next year and $10.75 billion by 2031, according to state economists.
The Florida Chamber of Commerce has long opposed placing issues on Florida’s Constitution that could be solved through the legislative process. This time, the organization appears to be leaning toward seeing the state’s Taxation and Budget Reform Commission tackle the issue next year.
“I think it’s going to be pretty hard to get to 60% once all the voices come out on that, and I suspect the 2027 Tax and Budget Reform Commission will be looking closely at putting something else on the ballot in 2028 for voters to consider,” Florida Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Mark Wilson said Friday in an interview with a Phoenix reporter on WMNF radio in Tampa.
The Taxation and Budget Reform Commission is a group of officials selected by the governor, House speaker, and Senate president to undertake comprehensive reviews every 20 years of the state’s budgetary process. Among its specific responsibilities are reviewing policy “as it relates to the state and local government to tax and adequately fund government operations and capital facilities to meet the state’s needs during the next twenty-year period.”
The Taxation and Budget Reform Commission also happens to be the legislative vehicle Florida TaxWatch considers the most appropriate agency to look at a major property tax proposal.
“This is by far the largest change to the fiscal structure of Florida government in our state’s history,” TaxWatch recently said in a written statement about Amendment 3.
“Anyone watching the legislative deliberation and debate could tell legislators were not really ready to vote on it. There had not even been an official state fiscal impact estimate done,” the organization said last month. “Rather than forcing this issue to be decided in a hastily called Special Session, it would have been far better to have this issue taken up by the constitutionally mandated group Florida TaxWatch helped to establish — the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission, which begins in 2027.”
Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds has also said recently that, although he supports Amendment 3, whether it passes or not “we are going to implement the will of the people of Florida.”
“If it doesn’t [pass], what we’re going to do next year is use the Tax and Budget Commission to bring this back, study it in far more detail, and try to find a way to give that real relief to seniors and to working families, with a goal of eliminating homestead property taxes in our state,” Donalds told CBS Miami host Jim DeFede in a recent interview.
The fact that DeSantis has emphasized the differences between the property tax reform proposal he offered the Legislature (less than a week before lawmakers were scheduled to vote on it) and what GOP lawmakers ultimately approved, has added confusion, says the Chamber’s Wilson.
“I think it’s pretty widely known what the governor came out with and wanted isn’t exactly what the Legislature’s final product was, so there’s a lot of confusion in the market about what everyone thought it was going to be versus what it is, so we’re doing a whole lot of education across the state right now on what it is compared to what people thought, and I think that there’s a lot of confusion brewing on it,” he said.
–Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix
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