The Florida House of Representatives approved a joint resolution on Thursday to put in motion a possible constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would completely end non-school property taxes for homesteaded properties beginning on Jan. 1, 2027.
The final vote was 80-30, with all Republicans supporting the proposal and all Democrats opposing it.
The chances of Floridians actually voting on the amendment are long, however. The Florida Senate has yet to propose any bill during this legislative session addressing property taxes. Joint resolutions can only be placed on the ballot if they are approved by a three-fifths majority in both the House and Senate. It does not need the approval of the governor.
Republican Sen. Ed Hooper, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Wednesday night that his chamber will introduce its own measure, although “it won’t be as generous.”
“We will come out with a proposal,” Hooper added, saying that it could be during this regular session or perhaps in a special session. “Whatever we send to the voters has to be agreed upon, totally, and that may be where the difficulty begins.”
The proposal introduced Thursday by Rep. Monique Miller, R-Palm Bay, was dramatically amended from her initial proposal (HJR 203), which would have gradually increased the homestead exemption for non-school-related property taxes by $100,000 each year for 10 years, beginning on Jan. 1 — if it were to actually get on the ballot this November and receive 60% support.
“After looking at the numbers, it became incredibly clear that we have the ability to do this without putting undue burdens on local government, and I believe that it can be done,” Miller told the chamber.
The state’s Revenue Estimating Conference has estimated that HJR 203 would cost local governments $13.3 billion annually. The House’s staff analysis estimates that approval of the amendment would have a negative cash impact of $4.8 billion and a negative recurring impact of $14.7 billion on local non-school property tax revenues in Fiscal Year 2027-28.
The discussion about the state becoming the first in the nation to completely eliminate property taxes outright has been led by Gov. Ron DeSantis over the past year. However, he has been AWOL in proposing any of his own ideas on a plan to present to voters. The governor finally weighed in before Thursday’s floor discussion — sort of.
“Regarding a property tax proposal for the 2026 ballot: we’ve been working with members of the Senate who have been great partners,” DeSantis said on X. “Given that it can’t be voted on by the people before November, it’s better to do it right than do it quick!”
After members of the GOP-controlled House introduced a suite of proposals to significantly reduce property taxes last fall, the governor dismissed them all, saying, “There’s not one proposal that would get people excited about. Not one. So they’re total half measures. Which is not what people are asking for. People want to be bold.”
Although he has never been explicit in saying so, it appears that DeSantis and the Senate would rather focus on a property tax proposal in a special legislative session — thus the fact that the Senate hasn’t produced one property tax proposal throughout the entire session, which is scheduled to end in three weeks.
Could the session again go into overtime?
House Speaker Daniel Perez hinted Thursday that the session might extend longer than its scheduled ending date of March 13, however. He addressed the chamber before the property tax proposal debate began, saying the Legislature had “arrived at the turning point of our session; where this road we have been traveling together narrows, and our choices ever more sharply shape our future.
“What happens in the days ahead will decide if we will be here another three weeks or another three months,” he added.
On the floor, Miller defended against criticism that if her proposal would bankrupt local governments, which rely on property taxes to fund law enforcement, parks, infrastructure, and other essential services. Citing reports that local governments budgets had ballooned in recent years, she said they would simply need to learn to do “more with less.”
That comment fired up Democrats, such as Rep. Rita Harris of Orlando. She said it was all a “ruse” to not take care of the “real issues that we’re struggling with.”
“We are defunding the police,” Harris said. “We are defunding the fire. We are defunding the garbage. We are defunding the schools. We are defunding the waste management. We are defunding people cutting your trees during storm session. We are defunding the state of Florida.”
Republicans insist that removing property taxes is a way to address the state’s affordability crisis.
“I believe that even our colleagues on the back rows would agree that rent has gotten too high, homeowners and small businesses are in an affordability crisis, and the price of homeownership is nearly out of reach for an entire generation,” said Rep. Ryan Chamberlin, R-Belleview. “The answer is simple: Cut property taxes, then eliminate them and let the tourists and the new movers pay for it.”
But Chamberlin acknowledged that the House’s passage of the proposal means nothing right now.
“Now is the time for the colleagues in the Senate to step up to the plate, and while I appreciate the governor’s rhetoric on the issue, we need his support as well,” he said.
Democrats countered that, if approved, the measure would in effect “defund” the police (as well as fire and first responders).
“Just doing the numbers, there are over 100 cities that after you do this will not even have enough money to maintain the local level of enforcement,” said Broward County Democratic Rep. Robin Bartleman.
That prompted a fiery response from Jacksonville Republican Rep. Dean Black, who said Democrats were engaging in “shrill debate” because the resolution does protect funding for the police.
“There’s really only one party that has historically supported defunding the police,” he said, adding that the Democrats’ rhetoric “emanate from a guilty conscience.”
Two other joint resolutions on property taxes the have cleared their committee assignments and are ready for floor votes — but that seems unlikely.
“I don’t want to say that this is the only bill that we’re going to pass off the House floor because at some point if the Senate wants to play ball, obviously, we’ll have that conversation,” Perez told reporters earlier this week.
Folliwing the House vote, former St. Petersburg Republican state Sen. Jeff Brandes blasted DeSantis’ inaction on the issue.
“No research, no public plan. He was never going to produce his own plan and be attacked/criticized. Making the Legislature take the heat was always the strategy. When the flaws in the proposal get exposed, he will say it’s not “my plan”…it’s theirs,” he wrote on X.
Regressive tax policy
The Florida Policy Institute denounced the vote.
“Our state already has the most upside-down tax code in the nation, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, and so the wealthiest Floridians pay the least in state and local taxes as a share of household income. Instead of addressing inequities in the tax code, HJR 203, along with the other property tax reforms that Florida lawmakers are considering, would further entrench them.
Florida lawmakers should only be considering tax relief that is targeted to people who need it the most — households, including renters, with low to moderate income. At the same time, in order to balance the ledger, policymakers should be looking to new ways to raise revenue, like through closing corporate income tax loopholes or taxing transfers of high-value real estate and intangible property.”
This story has been updated to include comments from Senate Appropriations chair Ed Hooper and the Florida Policy Institute.
Independent Journalism for All
As a nonprofit newsroom, our articles are free for everyone to access. Readers like you make that possible. Can you help sustain our watchdog reporting today?
Source link
