The current property tax situation in the state of Florida has to be fixed now. With a reduction in property taxes it will open our real estate market back up and improve our economy. Our legislatures are in special session this week trying to fix our broken property tax system. Email your legislatures now and encourage significant reduction in our taxes for this tax year.
What a carnival it has been. The state government is saying that city governments must reduce their budgets and cap spending. The city governments are saying that if they reduce their budgets they will have to eliminate thousands of jobs. Aren't there already tens of thousands of jobs affected and loss of income due to the real estate market being down? Real estate affects the whole state's economy from the Realtors, Mortgage Brokers, Appraisers, Title Companies, Builders, Contractors, Trades People, Transportation, Home Furnishings, Building Materials, and on and on. They are threatening to take away our services. Last week they just cut jobs at the local schools. Most of the people that were laid off were in their positions before the real estate took off. Our government was running just fine and our schools were running business as usual. I don't get it.
Our local government had a windfall of property tax revenues over the last 4 to 5 years. WHERE IS THE MONEY? They spent the money like it was going to continue coming in at that rate forever. Too much of a good thing will bite you in the butt. Common sense would tell you that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Our real estate prices (and property tax revenues) were growing at 30 - 40% a year. That just simply could not go on forever.
I have had to adjust my budget to a greatly reduced due to a slow real estate market. I will survive. You have to adjust and move on. Why can't our local governments do this?
All indications going into this special session were that all of our Legislatures have a plan that everyone seems to be on the same page with. Of course now things are changing. Isn't that just consistent with politics? Broken promises.
We need true and meaningful property tax reform and we need it now. We need something that will be fair for all property owners, both homesteaded and non-homesteaded properties including businesses. It is not fair that the majority of the increases in property tax revenues have come from second home owners, businesses and rental property owners. Most of those people don't even use the services that they are paying for. It needs to be fair for everyone.
Enough venting, just pray that our Legislatures (that we put into office) do the right thing. Only time will tell.
It's a good life,
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