ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Florida’s taxpayers would be whacked with the highest sales taxes in the nation if the state follows through with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ proposal to ditch property taxes, a think tank’s analysis reported Monday.
The nonpartisan Florida Policy Institute’s (FPI) research showed the base sales tax would spike from its current 6% to 12%, though researchers said the inevitable slowing of purchases would force the state to raise taxes even higher.
The rate would be on top of local sales taxes and surtaxes, like Seminole County’s infrastructure tax and many school district’s sales taxes.
FPI’s report found lawmakers would have to raise roughly $43 billion to maintain public services currently funded with property tax revenue if property taxes were eliminated, including 18% of county revenue, 17% of municipal revenue and 73% of school district revenue in the state.
Florida’s taxing mechanism is already considered by many economists to be the most “upside down” in the nation because of the lack of income taxes and a heavier reliance on sales taxes. It’s called upside down because low- to medium-income taxpayers typically pay a larger portion of their annual earnings toward taxes than wealthy households.
Losing the property tax would tip the scales even more in favor of wealthy households, FPI economists claimed, since there is no state income tax to balance the sales taxes out.
“While advocates of these proposals justify property tax cuts as a necessary means to offer relief, they rarely target the households that need it most by opting for top-down, one-size-fits-all tax relief that benefits wealthy households, ignores renters, and jeopardizes public education and services,” report author Esteban Leonardo Santis said.
Santis also said a secondary effect would be the hamstringing of local governments that rely on property taxes, leaving them struggling to fund police and fire departments, schools and other basic public services.
State lawmakers have not committed to going along with DeSantis’ idea, though legislation has been introduced to study the elimination of property taxes.
DeSantis himself admitted it would take a constitutional amendment to eliminate property taxes.
“We should put the boldest amendment on the ballot that has a chance of getting that 60%,” he wrote on X. “I agree that taxing land/property is the more oppressive and ineffective form of taxation.”
Santis put forward several ideas for lawmakers to look at instead, including taxing so-called luxury goods and services like mansions, private flights and stocks, several of which Florida has enacted in the past.
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