Janelle Irwin Taylor
House Speaker Daniel Perez wants Florida to become the only state in the nation to permanently reduce its sales tax, proposing on Wednesday a 0.75% cut to bring the state sales tax from its current 6% to 5.25%.
“This will not be a temporary measure; a stunt or a tax holiday. This will be a permanent, recurring tax reduction,” Perez said during remarks to the House Chamber.
The decrease is expected to save Floridians $5 billion per year, according to Perez.
Perez said it would be the largest tax cut in state history.
“We have forgotten a fundamental truth – this money isn’t ours. Tax dollars don’t belong to the government, they belong to the people,” Perez said.
He made the point that while the Legislature in recent history has “justifiably called out local governments for misspending and mismanagement,” lawmakers “have been reluctant to turn our gaze on ourselves and hold state government to those same standards.”
Pointedly, he said the state has a spending problem.
“More importantly, we have a recurring spending problem,” Perez added, noting that while member projects — often referred to as budget turkeys — “gain the most attention” because of vetoes, they don’t impact the state’s overall budget growth. He called such projects “irrelevant and incidental” to the state’s overall budget process in the long-term.
“Our problem is not that we buy too many non-recurring projects, it is that we cannot resist spending every single dime of recurring revenue,” Perez said. “We pile more money on programs that can’t even manage to spend the money they already have. The beneficiaries of the state budget are the endless string of lobbyists and vendors who always have some shiny new thing for the state to buy that won’t actually improve the lives of Floridians.”
Perez applauded work by subcommittee chairs to “find real savings,” and said results of their work will be published Friday in the proposed House General Appropriations Act, which he said will likewise be historic.
“Our budget will not only be lower than the Governor’s proposed budget, it will also be lower than the budget passed by the Legislature last term. For the first time since the Great Recession, we will roll out a budget that actually spends less money than we did in the prior fiscal year,” Perez said.
A Senate spokesperson said President Ben Albritton was made aware of the House plan prior to Perez’s announcement and that he “looks forward to reviewing the House proposal and budget in more detail later this week.”
“The Senate budget prioritizes broad-based tax relief, debt repayment, and reserves, while reducing per capita spending. The President has tremendous respect for the Speaker and looks forward to partnering with the House on a significant, broad-based tax relief package to make sure Florida families can keep more of the money they earn.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed a $116 billion budget and called for fiscal responsibility. Already, his budget, entitled “Focus on Fiscal Responsibility,” calls for an aggressive array of tax savings, though most are not recurring. He proposes the usual back-to-school tax holiday and tax holidays for disaster preparedness and “Freedom Month,” which provides tax breaks on summer outdoor activities and items, along with various events, museums and movie theater attendance. He also proposes a new “Second Amendment Summer” tax holiday on guns and ammo. Additionally, DeSantis wants to begin phasing out the state’s commercial rents sales tax, by dropping it to 1% in 2026 and then eliminating it altogether in 2027.
“We often talk about how to improve affordability in Florida, and our strategies usually involve spending money on more government programs. But this year, we’ll try a novel concept – and make Florida more affordable by giving the people of Florida their own money back to them,” Perez concluded in his remarks.
6 comments
EARL PITTS "Everyone's Mentor"AMERICAN
March 26, 2025 at 6:25 pm
Good evening Florida,
Many of our posters here at Peter’s most excellant publication, Florida Politics, are hesitant to comment until Earl “WEIGHS IN”.
So here you go Florida:
I, EARL PITTS AMERICAN, fully support this genius tax cut as it will be yet another “Feather In The Cap” for Ron & Casey to take The White House for the 2 (Two) consectuive terms as POTUS & FIRST LADY right after Trump’s term in office.
Thank you Florida, you are, one and all, free to relax your sphincters and henceforth post your commentary in accordance with the Sage Wisdom of me, EARL PITTS AMERICAN.
Thank you Florida,
EARL PITTS “Everyone’s Mentor”AMERICAN
Isabelle Goodwin
March 27, 2025 at 6:46 am
I just received $6618 working off my Iaptop this month. And if you think that’s cool, my divorced friend has twin toddlers and made 0ver $15781 her first m0nth. It feels so good making so much money when other people have to work for so much less.
This is what I do… work43.marketingℱ
please don’t copy”ℱ” In Url Thanks
John Eastman
March 26, 2025 at 7:35 pm
All the sales tax holiday nonsense is unfair, Just lowed it back to 5%.
Since Florida started collecting internet sales tax, the State has been awash in tax revenue. These idiots, instead of lowering sales tax just keep spending it all. Tolls are way too high. Property taxes are egregious and unfair. Stop robbing me to redistribute to cronies.
Auto and Home insurance is totally out of control. Ambulance chasing Lawyers need to have fees reduced. Tort laws need changes.
ScienceBLVR
March 26, 2025 at 9:18 pm
Granted, I’m no economist, but explain how the state and local governments function with ever dwindling resources? So get rid of property taxes, lower sales tax revenue, give taxpayer dollars back to Feds.. uh, schools, roads, infrastructure, well, I just know we need these dollars pretty badly. Just watched a sad show on recovery efforts or lack there of from recent hurricanes. Locally pumps failed and most that were supposed to help with flooding didn’t have back up generators? We can’t buy a few at Home Depot with some of this money? Could we bolster our beach and building defenses with a few bucks?
Guess we are too busy reprinting textbooks with Gulf of America in them- that cost money, too, by the way..
Deplorable Pinellas
March 26, 2025 at 11:09 pm
Eliminate sales tax completely on rent. It’s ridiculous that people and businesses pay sales tax on their rent. It is amusing that Republicans talk about eliminating property taxes by increasing consumption taxes and then come back with sales tax reduction talking point. Pick a damn train of thought and stick with it.
Taxation is theft anyways. If you have all this surplus money Mr. Perez, why are you cutting services and kicking children off Medicaid? So lots of money but none for our states vulnerable children. Lots of money but none for flood mitigation. Lots of money but none to improve failing infrastructure. Lots of extra money but never send any of it back to the citizens.
Skeptic
March 27, 2025 at 3:57 pm
Just waiting for the GOP to state which they want to cut more — Medicaid or Education. Between them, that is more than 1/2 of the state budget. After the feds cut their contributions to Medicare and Education and we cut sales and property taxes, we can zero out health care and education in the state — this is likely to make Florida highly competitive and an economic powerhouse, no? Ask anyone you know that employs people — sick and stupid is what they most desire in employees.