Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia is warning voters not to be intimidated by “big government apologists” seeking to defeat Gov. Ron DeSantis’ revamped property tax package that was added to the November election ballot.
Florida Politics reports Ingoglia, who appointed CFO by DeSantis, declared that claims of local governments facing financial wreckage if the property tax package passes were based on fear instead of facts.
“The first thing I would say is, you’re going to hear a lot of scare tactics and misinformation coming out from a lot of different places in this fight,” he said. “So, when I hear the misinformation and the talking points coming out from the big government apologists that say that they have to cut fire and they have to cut police, what they are saying is that that’s the last thing that they’re thinking about in the hierarchy of how they build their budgets.”
Ingoglia also accused local government officials of falsely claiming they will not be able to finance public safety if voters approve the proposal.
The ballot proposal, titled “Save Our Homes from Excessive Property Taxes,” will raise the existing $50,000 exemption for homestead properties to $150,000 starting in 2027, and then to $250,000 in 2028. Florida legislators, who approved putting the proposal before voters, tweaked the governor’s original plan so the exemption will not apply to school taxes.
The state’s leading business groups – including Florida Realtors, the Florida Chamber of Commerce, and NFIB of Florida – have yet to take a public position on the subject.
don’t be fooled by the line that is coming from tallahassee. local counties and municipalities are all stating that this could be catastrophic for even weathlier counties. when the chairperson of the study that this proposal is based on spot to my business ground here in south florida he stated that there were red flags and concerns about the financial impact on lower income/lower property value counties in central, north and pandhandle regions that have lower property values and need state monies to support their budget. also, florida ranks at the bottom for teacher pay, medicaid benefits, while environmental and arts programs have seen their budgets wiped out. this sounds like a rushed, ill thought out plan that only months ago was in the early dicussions stages without a clear time line
What will happen to the non exempt homes? Will the taxes go up on rental properties and increase rents from an already exhausted rental market. The old adage is that if you give benefits to one side you will be taking from another side. In this case rents will go up to those that can least afford it.
Lower taxes is a no-brainer. Local governments have been spending our tax money from inflated budgets for several years due to ever-increasing property values. It’s time for homeowners to stop paying exorbitant property taxes. Other states have recognized a similar problem and are also taking steps to reduce or even eliminate excessive property taxes based on increasing property values.
I’ve seen many reports and proposals of proposed homestead rules. Remember the SAVE OUR HOMES amendment with a 3% cap? Now some assessed values are are 50-75% less than market value. Does the new tax deal RESET the assessed values to current FMV before applying the $250K exemption? If so, then many homesteaders could see their tax bills go up by as much as 35%. I’m all for cutting purse strings on wasteful Govts. but I know that they never give up one tax unless they’ve planned for another revenue source. The burden may be shifted, but not lifted.