How to Fix the Property Tax Problem

As mayor of Surfside, a town near Miami, and as a property and homeowner, Charles Burkett lent support for the initial legislative proposal on property tax reform with great enthusiasm. Now, as Florida mortgage and homeownership costs continue to give residents fits, he finds that the bold initiative has slipped substantially for the following possible reasons and might be improved via the ideas below:

Does this plan materially re-set the spending clock back to a time within the last 10 years when revenues to government have virtually tripled?

Maybe reset, say, to the point where over the last 10 years government revenues and of course, expenditures could be brought back into line with income growth or maybe the rate of inflation? Again, do we know anyone who’s had their income triple in the last 10 years and who can afford to pay three times the price, including their property taxes, for anything?

House Speaker Marco Rubio’s revised plan calls for drastic increases on “Save our Homes” protected houses valued at over $1 million where the exemption falls to only 30 percent. This likely would lead to many, many Florida residents who have been in their homes for years, to immediately have to move as their taxes would increase by more than 50 percent.

The plan codifies and implements another class battle issue rather than an across-the-board tax cut, fair to everyone except over-bloated government.

An across-the-board cut, which continues to protect the poor, encourages both economic harmony and broad support, while implementing simple and effective, non-jerry-rigged legislation makes much more sense.

The current plan, as opposed to the original and exciting proposal, only addresses the symptoms and not the underlying condition. The underlying condition is the clearest example of unintended consequences ever - let’s not do it again.

The new homestead exemption idea, when coupled with the highest-and best-use appraisal method for both residential and commercial properties, will, as each year goes by not being indexed for inflation, soon have Floridians in the higher brackets, again giving government way too much money to spend.

That would bring us right back to the same problem for Florida home mortgage seekers and for the state government - massive over-taxation, over-spending and over-unaccountability.

Don’t believe that Florida mortgage holders won’t support the sales tax solution ballot question until you’ve asked.

It’s fair and effective, fairly resets the spending clock back to more reasonable years, it’s nonregressive and most importantly forces governments to budget, just like we all do in our own family lives. Let’s give Floridians the opportunity to vote on it, they deserve to be heard on such a critical set of questions.

Stop, once and for all, the ability for homeowners never to really own their own homes by giving government the right to tax them right out of them. Give Florida homeowners the right to live in their homes free of real estate taxes and watch the value of their homes skyrocket. Watch them improve their homes with the extra money they save in taxes.

Watch them make Florida a more beautiful and attractive place to live and as important, visit. Watch them become more affluent and watch them spend and pay sales tax with their increased affluence, even at, as initially proposed by the House, slightly increased rates.

Watch Florida become a national flat-tax model state - no income or real estate taxes on its citizens. Only a fair, fully exempted for the poor, flat tax.

Most sadly however, is that this real estate tax proposal likely will do little to address the outrageous growth of government spending over the last 10 years, which is most dangerous because of how much of a false sense of revenue security it gives to big government spenders, likely permanently addicted to same.

While many, including the Florida League of Cities, have fought against any tax rollback, it was my and many others’ opinion, that one of the most significant components of the initial House proposal was forcing government to live within reasonable spending limits. Remember, in most cases, government will spend every penny you give it and most times, even more.

My hope is that the House and Senate will reconsider the original plan and if the votes can’t be had this time, make it a campaign issue for next time.

We’ll all be behind the plan because it’s necessary and, it’s the right thing to do for our taxpayers and for the great state of Florida.

SOURCE: Daytona Beach News-Journal