A.G. Gancarski
Help may be on the way for Florida homeowners, at least in the form of having it become slightly harder to raise their millage rates.
Rep. Sam Garrison’s CS/CS/HB 1195, which will be heard Tuesday on the House Special Order Calendar, would go into effect in July, imposing a supermajority requirement for any millage increase after this year should it become law and replacing majority rules in places that currently have them.
The bill is moving in the Senate also.
Earlier this month, the Senate Finance and Tax Committee advanced Chair Blaise Ingoglia’s measure (SB 1322). The legislation now has one committee stop to go on the Senate side.
“Floridians are being hit with a one-two punch of increased property insurance rates and inflation. The last thing working families need is an unwarranted property tax increase too. Local governments have the power to raise property taxes, but they should only do so if there is a clear consensus that it is absolutely necessary,” Garrison said last month.
“Requiring a supermajority vote ensures this and provides an additional layer of protection to Florida’s taxpayers,” added the Clay County Republican.
Garrison has noted that in 2018, voters approved a constitutional amendment requiring a legislative two-thirds supermajority to raise taxes.
“We’ve honored the people’s will and operated under the constitutional premise that tax increases should only be considered as a last resort and require broad, oftentimes bipartisan consensus. This is consistent with our state’s tradition of limited government, low taxes and responsible fiscal stewardship.”
The original filing of the Clay County Republican’s bill contemplated a two-thirds vote in a referendum to be held during the General Election, but that version was withdrawn, and the language now aligns exactly with the Senate product.
21 comments
Julia
February 24, 2024 at 4:26 pm
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February 24, 2024 at 4:30 pm
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Earl Pitts "Sage Political Expert Emeritas" American
February 24, 2024 at 4:30 pm
Good evening Florida,
This may as well be called “The Earl Pitts Floridian” “Bill”.
I noticed my leftist run city of Gainsville was over-assessing our property tax to fund all sorts if “Dook 4 Brains Lefty Agenda”.
So I, Earl Pitts American, called in some legislative favors and having our property appraiser cease and disiste the practice.
EPA
Elmo
February 25, 2024 at 2:13 pm
None of us ever had any doubt that you were a legend in your own mind ass you have confirmed once again.
Earl Pitts "Sage Political Expert Emeritas" American
February 25, 2024 at 4:56 pm
Thank you Elmo,
It’s about time you began following up my, Earl Pitts American’s, Sage postings of superior knowledge and sage wisdom your wacky lefty comments cleaverly designed to make me appear more sage and wise to our World-Wide Readership.
I love you too Elmo
ps ar’ent you the muppet who had that long running homer testical relationship with Bert?
Anyway thanks Elmo,
Earl Pitts American
Rick Whitaker
February 27, 2024 at 10:03 am
elmo, as you may know, earl is a bigtime sexual predator and therefore is always out to meat new sphincters. beware if he wants to have a personal meating with you. earl is regularly hitting on me and i keep telling him i’m straight. i have banned him from calling or emailing me. please be careful if you are going to have contact with him.
TJC
February 24, 2024 at 4:34 pm
It’s not the property tax rates that need fixing, it’s the insurance rates. Highest home insurance rates in the nation, that’s Florida. Pretend to fix a problem, that’s Tallahassee.
Impeach Biden
February 24, 2024 at 4:34 pm
Democrats would never do this.
Dont Say FLA
February 24, 2024 at 5:06 pm
Probably not, because it’s just a bunch of BS.
The millage rate can remain forever unchanged, yet your taxes still go up with every so-called assessment of your property, despite assessments being nothing more than a penalty on you for properties in your neighborhood being flipped and selling for a lot more.
Why should the buying and selling actions of properties that you do not own have any input on your tax amount?
A property has a real value when it’s bought. Other than that, it’s just a place and the gub’ment is inventing a value for it and then making you pay based on that invented value even though you’re not buying or selling.
Hung Wiil
February 24, 2024 at 9:01 pm
Don’t Say Ye. You’re wrong, again. The assessed value is already subject to caps. It is called the Save Our Homes Assessment Cap. Google it. You’re wrong so often, have you monetized being wrong? This is a great bill. Pass it. Sign it. Live it. Love it.
Dont Say FLA
February 26, 2024 at 8:29 am
Yes, people can apply for the SOH benefit to mitigate ridiculous assessments, but nothing in what i said is wrong.
We’re both right… for now … until the government wants more of what we supposedly own and then they’ll change the rules again
tom palmer
February 24, 2024 at 11:58 pm
My homeowner’s insurance beill is several times as large as my property tax bill. These guys are cats watching the wrong mousehole.
Nope
February 25, 2024 at 12:01 am
The caps are tied to the CPI so any year the CPI goes up (which it almost always does), then they max out your assessed rate increase by 3.3% (the save our homes cap), against your assessed value. This continues to rise every year along with any millage rate changes (or arbitrary school board increases which often are their own taxing authority which have no oversight by city government or caps and for instance in Duval represent up to 50% overall property tax burden even though it’s not usually reported when discussing property taxes). Also rising city fees. Your assessed value will continue to max out at a 3% compounded increase every year until your assessed rate reached your “just rate” which is the arbitrary market rate your city assigns to your property which as the commenter states is based on aggregates. You may not have ever renovated your home but if your neighbors did and flipped it, you get to pay for that, too. It’s baked in. As long as property market rates continue to rise, this continues to escalate every year and your assessed rate will continue to max out and chase your ever rising “just” rate. Because of the way the law is written it will never stop rising. But cities are taking in record taxes from the rapid rise in property values based on home sales (the desantis/maga effect), and have also increased mill rates surreptitiously in many places (Duval has highest effective tax burden in the state and just raised mill age rate and poised to do so again, according to PT office), without public comment or knowledge. People who don’t own any property or even pay taxes are allowed to vote on referendums which increase rates like the additional half penny tax and one mil school board tax. Meanwhile millionaires are getting checks from the state to send their kids to private schools. More insanity. So yes, insurance is absolutely the number one crisis. They are 2 different issues, and exacerbate one another. It doesn’t much matter which party is in office It’s a punitive and arbitrary system.
MH/Duuuval
February 25, 2024 at 10:31 am
(the desantis/maga effect) = MAGA replacement theory in practice?
Dont Say FLA
February 26, 2024 at 8:33 am
With the MAGAs claiming to be so concerned about replacement theory, you’d think they might finally stop acting like they need to be replaced.
Hung Wiil
February 25, 2024 at 2:14 pm
Then move. Sounds like your county government sucks. This is a democracy, so you get what you vote for. You win. I have lived in my home for 22 years, and my annual property tax liability is $795, and I am 45 years old with no additional homestead exemptions besides the basic one. I’m locked in, and this bill will continue to ensure that I am protected from people like you. Yes, insurance is a bigger problem, but we can walk and chew gum concomitantly.
Nope
February 25, 2024 at 4:11 pm
“this bill will continue to ensure that I am protected from people like you.” Huh? What people would that be? I support this bill and any bill that helps keep people and especially seniors in their homes and which supports property ownership by taxpaying citizens, not itinerant flippers and the investor tsunami which has invaded Florida. Thanks for reading my comment even though it seems like you didn’t understand it. As property values continue to artificially inflate, so do replacement costs, which also exacerbate the insurance market as they keep using inflating home replacement costs based largely on market and construction values as a means to raise people’s insurance. It’s all related and needs to stabilize. This bill is a drop in the ocean but it does no harm.
Dont Say FLA
February 26, 2024 at 8:35 am
Is Hung Wiil an election accepter?
“…you get what you vote for. You win.”
Shame, Hung, shame. The party line is, “It’s rigged!”
Dont Say FLA
February 26, 2024 at 8:31 am
It’s all a penalty on Florida’s property owners so people like Rhonda can brag about “No Income Tax,” trying to attract low wage renter-workers aka MAGAs.
MH/Duuuval
February 25, 2024 at 10:28 am
The MAGAs want to rein in or even eliminate property taxes and increase sales (or consumption) taxes. Most economists consider sales taxes the more regressive of the two. But MAGAs argue that tourists will carry much of the load.
Note that personal income or wealth taxes never make the agenda as they are constitutionally verboten.
So, the rich continue to get richer and the rest of us hold on by our fingernails.
Nope
February 26, 2024 at 4:33 pm
I have worked with tax codes from countries around the world and even the Byzantine Indian VAT and punitive Canadian VAT and would still prefer a higher sales tax, a low and flat income tax, and no or very low and capped property taxes, so I pay for what I earn and what I actually buy but have peace of mind I would not be priced out of my home when I am old and frail and unable to work or move, the way is happening in Florida like an epidemic. (If anybody tells me don’t like it then move, why don’t you go tell your grandparents that who’ve built their whole lives somewhere snd put everything into their one asset and now can’t move or have no place to go they can afford, because this is happening).. I have compared economic stability and performance and home ownership stats in all 50 states and have come to this conclusion. Property taxes today, combined with the insurmountable insurance costs for many, are like carrying a second mortgage for people of average means. There is no security or wealth building in that. No point in passing on property to your heirs because the taxes and insurance on the step up value are insupportable. It is punitive and regressive. I would actually support a shift away from property taxes (beyond paying for city services as required), and more toward a low flat income tax and higher sales and luxury taxes, with exemptions for food and medicine. That would help supoort property ownership and community stability much more. Florida’s homestead exemptions are one of the most extreme in the U.S.—unlimited protections against creditor claims and unpaid liabilities. This does not protect the average Joe from losing their house due to unpaid medical catastrophe bills like it pretends to do. Nope. But it does attract millionaire crooks who use real estate as a funnel through which they cycle bad debts (there are laws and limits but they have no teeth) to avoid paying their liabilities. Florida is also one of the money laundering capitals in the world. Hm wonder why. It’s all by design. But the negative effects on the working classes and seniors and young people who can’t afford to buy in, have shifted into overdrive. You can roll your eyes and say this is the way of things or if you don’t like it then move,, but it didn’t used to be and doesn’t have to be like this. They can change it with the strike of a pen, they just don’t want to.
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