Florida Senator Don Gaetz

Had the opportunity to hear a presentation by Freshman, Florida State Senator Don Gaetz regarding the possible property tax reforms. We will not know until later this week if the House and Senate can compromise on the two different approaches to resolving our property tax issues so that it can make a proposed constitutional amendment in time for the 29 January primary vote.

According to the Florida National Association of Realtors (NAR) we have seen a 99% increase in property taxes since 2000 and substantially more for non-homestead property–factors impacting our real estate market.

There are many details, however, two important points that Gaetz is pushing to get passed I think is worth mentioning in this short post.

1. Portability: This will limit the increase in taxes when someone upgrades from their current homestead–encouraging some movement for those that have put off trading-up based on the substantial increase incurred by purchasing a property assessed at a higher value than the previously owned property.

2. Non-homestead tax cap: The substantial increase in assessed values in properties over the past few years has crushed non-homestead properties because, unlike the homestead’s 3% annual cap increase–there is no yearly cap for non-homestead property. This will also alleviate some downward pressure on the second home property sales.

Sen. Gaetz made a lasting impression, not only because of his understanding of the tax impact on Florida’s economy, but also as a proponent of those cuts that will alleviate the tax burden on non-homestead property.

It will be interesting to find out what happens next week.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 29th, 2007 at 9:18 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.