Florida Property Tax Reform at Heart of Panel Discussion in Miami
In the Palm Beach housing market, property taxes sit atop the list of homeowner complaints. Understandably, these individuals want to move and take their tax relief with them.
Business owners also want lawmakers to rein in skyrocketing property taxes.
As a result of numerous complaints, The Florida Property Tax Reform Committee is trying to come up with ways to improve property taxation in Florida. On Tuesday, it met at Miami-Dade College’s Wolfson campus, where members listened to testimony by taxpayers.
Property tax takes
One of the issues the committee is looking at is portability, the ability of homeowners to take property tax relief with them when they apply for a new Florida home mortgage and buy a new property. Under the Save Our Homes amendment, assessments on property with a homestead exemption are limited to three percent per year.
Such a system penalizes young families trying to move into bigger homes, along with older people who want to leave their homes for a smaller property, said committee member Bill Donegan, the property appraiser for Orange County.
“Those are the two things that are going to affect Florida: people coming in and the seniors that want to move to the coast or move to The Villages,” he said.
Among the portability proposals before the committee is one where the taxes would be based on a county’s median home price.
Committee member Dennis Nelson, a Wellington real estate agent, said the committee should look at the issue of first-time homeowners who have difficulty buying a home; the goal should always be to assist these applicants and open up the market to as many buyers as possible.
March 31st, 2007 at 2:46 pm
[…] much taxpayer money needs to be spent to get ready for that growth? Now you’re really stretching for answers. […]
May 8th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
The mileage rate for a hurricane prone,mosquito infested sauna where more than half the population speaks other languages and crime is often the subject of several tv series really is out of control..Our public schools are struggling to meet national standards with the diverse ethnicity handicap without federal assistance.Also,look at what percent of the avg.mortgage 25K exemption was at its inception…..for the same home today it would merely represent a fraction of the county`s new appraised value–the least we can do is double that-for common sense reasons alone.
Stop the gluttony that wastes human resources in government by simply dismantling the dynasty of non-productive,uneccesary corruption that fosters this type of legalized extortion from middle class Americans.
May 14th, 2007 at 2:53 am
With the 2007 implosion of the housing market in Florida-a state where the politicians are fearful of fallout from the ‘housing collapse’ for obvious reasons- due to spiraling tax inflation and state goverenmental spening-it would appear that only a repeal of the property taxes, supported at the grass root level by most of the citizens, would reverse the trend of citizens fleeing the state for lower taxes elsewhere in states such as nevada. To repeal the tax would possibly reverse the bust, which has threatened to turn into a full blown recession. the taxes could be increased on a number of things, and florida might again regain it’s image as a low-tax state. It is now percieved as a risky place to move, and too high in property taxes to beat. Florida’s Proposition 13(california cap on property taxes) is well supported by many citizens like myself here in Florida.
October 18th, 2007 at 11:43 am
What about the thousands of homesteaded citizens who purchased a home in 2005.
after selling their existing homesteaded property. Our taxes have tripled, 1 block
away in the same neighborhood. We need a retro-active provision in the portability
of Save our Homes.