By Bill Cotterell
There is probably nothing any officeholder likes more in an election year than a chance to cut taxes, a treat that will tempt Florida lawmakers in their 2026 legislative session.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republicans have been promoting the idea of doing away with property taxes for homeowners, or at least severely lowering them. It’s still in the talking and costing-out stage, and anything they come up with would have to go on next year’s ballot, but what politician wouldn’t want to share that ballot beside a major tax cut?
Nobody likes taxes, and a levy on your house is especially distasteful. Millage caps and added exemptions come up from time to time, always framed as long-overdue relief for poor widows and worthy veterans.
Republicans going back to Marco Rubio, when he was House speaker from 2006 to 2008, have persuasively argued that you never really own your home if you have to pay the local government every year. Rubio proposed reducing property taxes to their 2001 levels — a five-year rollback at the time — but all he wound up with was an increase in the homestead exemption. Instead of just exempting the first $25,000 in value of a home, the portion valued between $50,000 and $75,000 also was made exempt.
Not bad. But Florida is not a high-tax state, regardless of what legislative candidates will tell you.
Strategically tempting though it may be, abolishing property taxes poses a pair of practical problems.
First, local governments need to provide public schools, police and fire services and roads, just to name some big-ticket stuff. Another source of money — probably the sales tax — would have to be raised to replace the revenue.
Second, that’s regressive. The more luxurious your home, the higher your property taxes — generally speaking — and the more humble your abode, the less you pay. There are exceptions and anomalies, but the working family is normally going to pay less than the retiree with a Mercedes in the driveway.
The trouble is, the sales tax bears no relation to your ability to pay.
There’s also a logical flaw in the professed GOP belief that you never truly own your home if you have to pay taxes on it. It’s not a penalty. You’re paying to maintain cops on the beat, libraries for everybody, to fix potholes. You don’t want to support schools because you have no children in them? Well, don’t you want to live in an educated community?
The governor says Florida has one unique advantage in junking the levy. “When you talk about the property tax, we’re probably the only state in the country that could pull it off,” DeSantis recently said, pointing to snowbirds who pay taxes on non-homesteaded properties.
“You have wealthy people who stay here three months a year. I’d rather Floridians pay less, and they pay the taxes — why would we not want to look out for our own?” he said.
Best of all, those snowbirds don’t vote in Florida — so tax ‘em. But it’s doubtful there are enough wealthy Yankees wintering down here to offset our property taxes, or a major chunk of it.
The Florida Policy Institute, an Orlando-based organization, delved into preliminary data from the Department of Revenue and estimated that untaxing homesteaded properties would lead to counties and school districts losing about $7.8 billion each and cities having to replace some $3 billion.
The Tallahassee-based Florida TaxWatch made a similar projection based on last year’s local taxes.
Meanwhile, state Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia has been spotlighting what he considers waste and reckless spending by local governments — sort of a state-level Department Of Government Efficiency operation like the one Elon Musk ran in Washington. Ingoglia, who happens to be up for election next year, and DeSantis, who appointed him to the Cabinet job, have dubbed this effort the “Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight” or FAFO — an acronym with a coy meaning in social media.
It’s all so tempting, so much fun, this waging war on taxes. Offer me a tax cut and you’ve got my attention and, once you’ve got my attention, my vote follows.
In an election year, that’s a can’t-miss proposition.
Bill Cotterell is a retired Capitol reporter for United Press International and the Tallahassee Democrat. He can be reached at [email protected]
A republic if you can keep it says
Well , there go the taxes on Mar A Lago . Wait …..do they pay taxes on what it’s worth? Or what Trump said it was worth? Or what he financed it for? Or what he claimed in taxes? Did he release his taxes before they close the IRS?
melly says
You know how I know this author is full of baloney? The Commonwealth of Virginia levies a property tax on automobiles whether they are on loan or paid off. There are a gargantuan number of well-off people in northern Virginia who pay other taxes and the state doesn’t “need” this. They do it because they can. They’re also fixing to abolish it, if I read right a few months ago.
That’s what Florida’s fight here is all about. There’s “a tax” on “property”, whether it’s on loan or paid in full. Because They Can. It’s not like there’s not other ways to recoup the money. Dude obviously has never set foot in a cardiology office in Florida in December if he thinks there’s not enough snowbirds to support the state.
JimboXYZ says
My biggest concerns are the inflation for every wolf trying to go after that new found source of money that any homeowner would have. How much of that labeled as property tax ends up in a General Fund and is siphoned off for other undisclosed line items that property taxes fund ? SO the Government will create new line items for taxes that formally were called “property” tax. When has the government ever done something of an economic stimulus that didn’t inflate prices short run/term. And we’ll have some folks that will spend it foolishly on something else, still be gouged for inflation. And sales taxes will be diverted to pay for things like Beach rebuilds/dune renourishment. Because now there is that much more money to be applied for calling it something else. On a side note, he beach rebuild in Volusia county was wiped out by the Nor’easter earlier this month. Kinda wondering what the rougher surf & tides did to Flagler County beaches ? I think the county & state stand to make more money than a relatively protected property tax is for 3% increases by eliminating property taxes & replacing it with other taxes & inflation. When has anyone Government come up with a savings that didn’t end up costing more as the overall variables of the cost of living ? When I analyze the TRIM Notice, +/- 40% is the Property Tax line item, +/- 60 % is Schools, Voter Debt, Mosquito Control, City of Palm Coast, SJR Water Management. All that will just be restructured as something else. Those other line items will still need to be funded. Maybe the TRIM Notice becomes more transparent for line items umbrella-ed under the line item “Property Tax” ?
https://floridabeginner.com/florida-save-our-homes/
Joe D says
What an election year propaganda stunt!
Road repairs, police and fire services/ambulance crews, county and local officials’ salaries, all ( for the most part) are paid for by property taxes.
The only way around property taxes would be to charge use fees, or flat service fees on everyone. So the lower cost manufactured home owner and the $million dollar plus home owner would all be paying the same flats fees or same increased sales tax. That puts retired and lower/ middle income families paying a much higher portion of their income and the $million dollar plus property owners get a BIG DISCOUNT, by not paying any higher fee for living in Florida than the average priced home.
City and County services don’t come for free… where do you think the money is going to come from!?! So either you would see massive new fees, or massive cuts in services…you think the roads are bad NOW…
Use your HEADS voters, all this talk of no property taxes is just an election ploy to get your vote…think of the REAL WORLD results !