Broward Activists for Tax Equity

Recent Updates

 

September 4, 2008

 

The Florida Supreme Court has ruled Amendment 5 off the ballot, agreeing with the opponents that the title and summary are misleading.  This kills any hope of tax reform before 2010.

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August 27, 2008

 

The Florida Supreme Court will review the lower court's decision to strike Amendment 5 from the ballot.  The hearing had originally been set for September 8, but it has been moved up to September 3 so that election officials have timely information on whether to include the amendment on the ballot.

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August 15, 2008

 

A circuit court judge has ruled that Amendment 5 be stricken from the November ballot because (1) the title mentions only the sales tax swap and not other features of the amendment, and (2) the summary is misleading because it implies that the legislature is required permanently to make up the loss of property-tax funding with equivalent sales tax revenue, whereas the amendment specifies only that education funding be "held harmless" only for one fiscal year.  The supporters have begun their appeal and will try to bypass the appeals court and go directly to the Supreme Court so that a ruling can be made before the ballots are printed.  The supporter argue that the title cannot be expected to cover all aspects of the amendment, and there is not reason to expect Amendment 5 to mandate a level funding for education when there is no such mandate under the current system of taxation.  Click here for the text of both the ruling and the text of the amendment.

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August 1, 2008

 

Since the previous update the Florida Legislature has put a tax package known as "Amendment 5" on the November 2008 ballot.  The major changes to the Florida constitution that would be imposed by passage of this amendment are:  (1) mandating a 5% cap on the yearly increase of taxable assessments to non-homestead properties (currently limited to 10%); (2) removing the authority of the state to mandate Required Local Effort ad valorem taxes to qualify for state aid to education;  (3) limiting ad valorem taxes for all school purposes to 5 mills; and (4) authorizing a number of mechanisms for accommodating the loss of revenue, including repeal of sales tax exemptions that are determined not to advance a public purpose, and increasing the sales tax rate by one percent.

 

The text of Amendment 5 can be found at http://election.dos.state.fl.us/initiatives/fulltext/pdf/12-6.pdf .

 

The amendment does not necessarily eliminate all school items from the property tax, as local government may still choose to impose such taxes, but at least such taxes are limited to 5 mills.  In my case, the 2007 tax bill contained around 7.6 mills for schools, so a 5 mill limit would have resulted in a 14% reduction of my tax bill.  Not the same as totally eliminating the school tax (which would have been a 38% reduction),  but not negligible, either.

 

As we might expect, there will be concerted efforts to pass or defeat this measure.  The Realtors' Association is in favor, and many organization that rely on the property tax are opposed.  The Governor is reported to be in favor, but has not made a strong pitch for passage.  A lawsuit to throw out the Amendment has been filed, with the petitioners claiming that "Florida's constitution was not intended to include substantive tax laws".  Yeah, right!  Should have thought of that when SOH was on the ballot.  A hearing on the suit is scheduled for August 13.

 

The last I heard from Gov Crist's office was that he supports Amendment 5 but has not committed to campaigning for its passage.  If you wish to encourage the Governor to be more proactive on this amendment, contact him by telephone, e-mail, or snail mail at:

 

Citizen Services Hotline: (850) 488-4441

 

Charlie.Crist@MyFlorida.com

 

Office of Governor Charlie Crist

State of Florida

PL-05 The Capitol

Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001

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April 14, 2008

 

The TBRC voted today on proposal 45 and, unfortunately, they fell three votes short of approving the amendment. 

The only hope for a tax limitation proposal on the November ballot is the 1.35% property tax cap measure now before the legislature.

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April 11, 2008

 

The TBRC is scheduled to meet on April 18 to vote on Proposal 45 to limit taxes and spending.  Twenty-nine amendments to this proposal have been submitted, which explains why a decision has not yet been reached.  I understand that no further amendments will be allowed.

 

I leave for a three-week vacation on the 19th.  If I have the results early enough I'll try to let you know the outcome before I leave.

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March 15, 2008

 

It has been brought to my attention that Proposal 21 provides a more comprehensive tax reform package – and one that is more favorable to non-homestead residences – than Proposal 50.  Click here for an analysis by Florida Tax Watch of the five proposals to be discussed at Monday's TBRC meeting.

 

March 14, 2008

 

The TBRC will meet on Monday, March 17, to vote on various proposals for ballot items.  Of particular interest is Proposal 50, which mandates the following:

1.      Elimination of the Required Local Effort for education; i.e., eliminating the portion of the property tax that pays for schools.  Revenues lost from this source must be made up from a combination of a repeal of certain exemptions to the state sales tax, an increase of up to 1% in the sales tax rate, reductions is state spending, and revenues from other sources.

2.      Reduction of the maximum millage rate authorized for school funding from 10 to 5 mills.

3.      Limit the yearly increases in taxable assessment of non-homestead properties to 5 percent.

 

Passage of this proposal – assuming approval by the voters in November 2008 – would provide property tax relief for all and some small amount of justice for owners of non-homestead properties.  Passage requires a 2/3 vote of the entire membership of the TBRC, or 17 votes.  Lately the TBRC has had difficulty getting members to attend, so let's see if they even have a quorum for taking a vote.  A summary of this proposal can be found at www.floridatbrc.org/pdf/CSforCP50.pdf.

 

Proposals relating to limits or revenues and spending will be presumably considered at future meetings.

 

At least four lawsuits have been filed to overturn SOH.  Lanning v Pilcher, which I have mentioned previously, is now in the appeals court.  450 petitions have been sent to the Attorney General of Massachusetts requesting an amicus brief in support of this lawsuit.  Petitions are available for CT, MI, NJ, NY, PA, and Canada at www.browact.org/legal.htm.  Coordinators for the petitions for other than MA and Canada are still needed.  If interested contact me at browact@comcast.net.

 

Two other lawsuits handled by the same legal team are Bruner vs Hartsfeld, filed on behalf on recent homesteaders, and a new lawsuit filed on behalf of non-residents which will include reference to Amendment 1 and contain a substantial data base.  (The Lanning suit, also filed on behalf of non-residents, was filed before passage of Amendment 1.)

 

A lawsuit has also been filed independently by an individual by the name of Kenneth Kania.

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February 8, 2008

 

For those who may be up north and not following the tax situation in Florida, take a look at the Miami Herald editorial reprinted in the “news” section of www.browact.org, which gives a good review of "Amendment 1" to the Florida Constitution that was approved by the voters on Jan 29.  Although this amendment is often characterized as cutting taxes, it is in reality a further shift in the property tax burden from homestead properties to non-homestead properties.

 

True tax reduction will need to be enacted by the state legislature or by the people via one or more additional constitutional amendments.  It is unlikely that the Legislature will act anytime soon, which means we are dependent on the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission (TBRC) to place amendments on the November 2008 ballot.

 

The Finance and Taxation committee of the TBRC will meet this coming Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 11 and 12, to consider proposals to impose tax and spending limitations, and to improve sales tax collections and shift some of the tax burden from the property tax to the state sales tax.  Of particular relevance are Proposal 41 to impose revenue caps and Proposal 45 to impose spending limits.  I encourage all to write the Committee members urging them to adopt these tax and spending limitations.

 

Susan Story   http://floridatbrc.com/email.php?rp=bm&id=21

Hoyt "Barney" Barnett  http://floridatbrc.com/email.php?rp=bm&id=2

Martha W. Barnett  http://floridatbrc.com/email.php?rp=bm&id=3

Julia Johnson  http://floridatbrc.com/email.php?rp=bm&id=7

Bruce Kyle http://floridatbrc.com/email.php?rp=bm&id=8

Patricia Levesque  http://floridatbrc.com/email.php?rp=bm&id=10

John M. McKay  http://floridatbrc.com/email.php?rp=bm&id=14

Randy Miller  http://floridatbrc.com/email.php?rp=bm&id=17

James A. Scott  http://floridatbrc.com/email.php?rp=bm&id=1

Kenneth "Ken" Wilkinson  http://floridatbrc.com/email.php?rp=bm&id=23

Brian Yablonski  http://floridatbrc.com/email.php?rp=bm&id=24

 

Texts of the Committee proposals can be found at http://floridatbrc.org/proposals41_50.php.  On February 13 the full TBRC will meet to consider the proposals presented by the various committees.

 

The best we can hope for from either the Legislature or the TBRC are proposals for tax and spending limitations.  There does not appear to be any chance that proposals for tax equity will be considered.  Equity will be achievable only through one or more successful lawsuits to overturn SOH (http://www.sohalegalchallenge.com/).  As mentioned previously, petition drives are underway to encourage the Attorney General of Massachusetts and the Foreign Minister of Canada each to submit an amicus curiae brief in support of one of the lawsuits.  Over 450 signatures have been received to date for the MA effort.  Petitions for these efforts, as well as for Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania may be downloaded from www.browact.org/legal.htm.  Coordinators to serve as collectors of the petitions for these four these four states are needed.  If interested please contact Bill Levison at browact@comcast.net.

 

January 24, 2008

 

Below are a couple of messages I received recently, one of general interest, and one of particular interest to Canadians.

 

Of general interest:

 

Anti-tax effort is out of time, not out of hope

By MICHAEL POLLICK

 

Time has run out for the state's anti-tax activists to gather enough signatures to get their tax-slashing amendment on the Florida ballot in November.

Organizers are instead scrambling to gather upwards of 350,000 signatures demanding a statewide property tax cap and put them into the hands of Tallahassee policy crafters -- legislators and members of a special tax and budget reform commission.

Both the commission and the Legislature still have time for a comprehensive property tax cap in November 2008.

The activists intend to use the state's Jan. 29 vote on presidential primary candidates and the Save Our Homes portability amendment as an opportunity to pick up signatures for their proposal, which would put a permanent 1.35 percent lid on the amount of property tax that could be collected on the taxable value of any and all Florida property.

"Whatever way we can, we are going to push to get this on the ballot this year," said one of the chief organizers, Dr. David McKalip, a St. Petersburg neurosurgeon.

Dubbed the "1.35 percent solution," the proposal has, at the very least, become a unified rallying point for the state's disparate tax-cutting activists. Until just a few months ago, they were each pushing their own utopian dream for holding the line.

"This is the largest anti-tax coalition that has ever been assembled in Florida," said Doug Guetzloe, chairman and founder of Orlando-based Ax the Tax, which has thrown his group's considerable support behind the 1.35 percent proposal.

Collectively, the regional groups -- including Ax the Tax, Cut Taxes Now in Tampa, the Coalition Against Runaway Taxation in the Sarasota-Manatee area and many smaller groups -- have 75,000 to 100,000 followers who have signed up in some form or other.

"I would say we have in excess of 1,000 people who are really fire-breathers," Guetzloe said.

The granddaddy of the groups involved, Ax the Tax was founded in 1982 and claims to have been involved in $25 billion in tax cuts already through various referenda.

While the Legislature's Amendment 1 would give some portability to an already homesteaded homeowner, the 1.35 percent solution would be a rather dramatic, across-the-board property tax limit that would reduce or cap the tax bills paid by any property owner, whether the property is a primary residence, a vacation home, a shopping center, or a vacant lot.

On average, it would cut property taxes by 25 percent around the state, promoters say.

If an individual's property is already taxed at less than 1.35 percent -- the case in unincorporated Sarasota County -- the proposal would serve as a barrier to higher taxes at some future date.

Hovering in the parking lots of polling places, volunteer activists plan to tell voters that their proposal can work alongside the more limited Save Our Homes portability amendment that they consider that day.

"They can vote for Amendment 1 and get portability and still vote for ours and get some good, real tax relief," McKalip said.

Lawmakers have erected a fairly high threshold for citizens to get an amendment onto the ballot: 611,000 signatures, verified by each county's election supervisor, by Feb. 1 of the election year in question.

McKalip says the activist coalition has about 80,000.

"The Legislature rigged the game so citizens have a hard time getting initiatives on the ballot," McKalip said. "So they are going to have to step up and solve that problem."

Even if the tax-cutting volunteers gather the other 531,000 signatures by staking out polling places on Jan. 29, they would still have to wait while county supervisors verify all those signatures -- making a Feb. 1 deadline virtually impossible.

Supervisors have up to 30 days to accomplish that mission once they are presented with signed petitions.

"The supervisor is not going to drop everything and verify signatures on a petition when they are trying to certify an election that just happened," said Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for the Florida Division of Elections.

While McKalip thinks the 2008 Legislature is still an avenue, another coalition leader, Don Schroder of the Coalition Against Runaway Taxation, said the state's Tax and Budget Reform Commission is an even better target for change.

The appointed group has the power to place an amendment directly onto the November ballot, and happens to be convening this year. The group will not be reassembled for another 20 years.

"We don't have any problem getting the 600,000 signatures by the 2010 ballot," Schroder said. "But what we are trying to do at this stage is put as much pressure as possible on the Legislature and the TBRC to come up with viable programs that will give major tax relief to all owners of property, rather than just those who are homesteaded."

On Longboat Key, winter visitor Winnie Nelon is paying property taxes of 16.64 mills on a nonhomesteaded waterfront home that her grandfather built.

She says she understands why someone who is homesteaded would vote in favor of the portability amendment on Jan. 29.

"If you are homesteaded it is hard to tell somebody not to. For the rest of us, it is money in their pockets that just came out of our pockets."

 

Please help Ax the Tax and our anti-tax coalition collect petitions to cap property taxes

on Tuesday.

Email me at doug@axthetax.org or call

407-388-1776.

WE NEED YOUR HELP ON TUESDAY!

Together we can make a difference!

Doug Guetzloe
Chairman
Ax the Tax www.AxTheTax.org

750 South Orlando Avenue
Suite 202

Winter Park, FL 32789

(407) 388-1776 - office
(407) 629-7760 - telefax
doug@axthetax.org

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Of particular interest to Canadians:

 

Canadian Snowbird Extravaganza is on 29th and 30th in Lakeland. 50,000 snowbirds usually attend. American snowbirds too. This is a wonderful opportunity to collect signatures for petitions to American AG's and Canadian Gov't. Over 1000 usually attend the CSA presidents address on the 29th am!  Contact Dory Kilburn at dorja@falls.igs.net if you could helpcollect signatures o n any or all of the petitions above at this event (Details below).

 

Canadian Snowbirds (and others!) Extravaganza

Tuesday and Wednesday, January 29 and 30, 2008, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
On January 29 and 30, 2008, the Lakeland Center in Florida will play host to the annual Snowbird Extravaganza Florida, one of the largest mature lifestyle event in the world.

 

Conveniently located off of I-4 between Tampa and Orlando, the Lakeland Center is well known to Florida consumers and boasts more than 80,000 square feet of renovated show space in two adjoining buildings. The Youkey Theater, located within the parameters of the Center, also affords consumer attendees a performing arts-type auditorium to enjoy non-stop, world-class Extravaganza entertainment in style.

 

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Updates prior to January 24, 2008

 

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