Guest Author
Recently, the Legislature allocated hundreds of millions of dollars for both a sales tax holiday and a refund process for Hillsborough residents who were improperly taxed years ago.
The Hillsborough Transportation Tax was imposed in 2018 based on an illegal charter amendment. The people of Hillsborough County were falsely induced to vote for the tax based on incorrect representations about how the tax would be spent and administered.
In short, Florida law states that any county transportation sales tax must be allocated by the people’s elected representatives, in this case, the County Commission, as it deems fit and subject to electoral consequences.
The purveyors of the Transportation Tax created an unelected and unaccountable body to allocate the funds. Downtown Tampa special interests promoted the Transportation Tax to subsidize developers by directing money collected countywide to improvements calculated to primarily benefit Downtown interests. Arbitrary and fixed permanent criteria ensured the monies would be spent at the behest of these Downtown special interests to the exclusion of projects benefiting suburban residents, who comprise the bulk of the County’s growing population.
Vast resources were used to promote the unlawful tax, which was enacted in 2018 and collected starting in 2019. However, the Florida Supreme Court threw it out in early 2021.
In all, $570 million was collected through this regressive sales tax, which, like all sales taxes, disproportionally fell upon working-class residents. Moreover, these funds went unspent during years of litigation. After myriad legal proceedings and legislation, the funds were remitted to the Florida State Department of Revenue.
For over a year and a half, the Legislature failed to allocate these funds because special interests were deadlocked with legislators who wished to return the money to the people.
Since the tax was collected, these funds have provided no refund or benefit to the taxpayer whatsoever.
As a result of legislative compromise, some of the money has been allocated to road resurfacing, while most of the money will be returned to residents. Although Downtown special interests demanded all the money from the illegal tax for their special projects, the Legislature rightly rejected this proposal.
If the money were spent in the same manner as intended by the special interests who promoted the illegal tax in the first instance, the wrongdoers would be rewarded. Further, the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling and our laws regulating the imposition of taxes would be meaningless.
Stated differently, the money should be returned to the taxpayers in the most practical way possible, rather than spent on the exact same types of projects that were being promoted by the special interests who purveyed this illegal tax.
Although Hillsborough’s transportation infrastructure is important, the Hillsborough Transportation Tax was intended for projects of little benefit to the areas that need new infrastructure the most. Further, the historic pattern of spending provides no assurance that the new tax would have been allocated wisely.
As for any notion that the “will of the people” was subverted, Hillsborough voters rejected a very similar effort in 2022. (But not before the Court again threw out the language as misleading.)
Downtown special interests who supported the illegal tax but are dissatisfied with the allocation have only themselves to blame.
Hillsborough taxed itself at their behest but, due to their missteps, was required to send the money to Tallahassee to be allocated by the Legislature. (Needless to say, most of the Legislature, including the current leadership, does not represent Tampa Bay.)
Ideally, the people should have kept their money to spend as they see fit. Failing that, any lawful tax would require our own elected County Commissioners to allocate the funds.
Downtown special interests placed Hillsborough residents at the mercy of jurists and legislators from various jurisdictions as to the ultimate use and allocation of their hard-earned tax dollars.
In closing, the Hillsborough Transportation Tax is a warning against tax increases. Whether properly promulgated or not, no government can guarantee that a new tax will benefit the taxpayer.
The only certainty is taxation.
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Rep. Mike Beltran represents District 70 in the Florida House.
