The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

What do you guys that live here in the sunshine state think of the Property Tax vote on the November ballot?

Just looked this up and I'm also interested to hear what FL residents think, especially anyone who doesn't own a home.

I fully support the version DeSantis presented and am only OK with the one they passed. Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia and his F.A.F.O. (Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight) auditing teams have uncovered massive local government overspending and abuse across the state.

DeSantis has not only continued to lower state budgets, he has paid down the state debt to less than half of what it was when he took office. Unfortunately more politicians either aren't capable, or refuse to do it. I can only speak to the local officials I know. They tend to see something they want and just add to the bill. There is no reduction in pet projects or unnecessary giveaways. 

I say all of this to say I don't think municipalities are going to suffer like they are pretending. They will either have to make tough choices or get replaced by people who will. Florida residents should not be on the hook for their inept spending. Rising property "values" do not equate to additional spending needs although they will tell you differently.

This is a bad idea, but one that might help me personally.

1) Taxes have to come from somewhere. So, by cutting this off, you're going to have to get it from other places.  That is just a fact of running a government, or else things will get shittier.

That said:

2) This is another way to help the haves and hurt the have nots.  I own a house.  So, I'll get that cut.   But there is an absolute crisis here where you simply cannot buy a house.  The cost of a home far, far, far exceeds the reasonable salary to be a worker here.  If you don't already own a house and can sell that house for more than you bought it to trade up, you pretty much aren't buying one.

The median value of a home in the lower half of the state is $640,000.  All of my friends who are my age were able to buy a decade ago and their value went up.  All of my younger friends rent and have no end in sight, because every home is 3X their budget.

This will fuck renters which is the majority of the working class.

This is a Republican fantasy that we've seen over and over.  If there is over-spending and fraud, fine -- cut the spending.  But the idea to cut the revenue as a pretext to being forced to cut spending....that just doesn't happen.  Tax cuts are spending.

This is just going to shift the revenue stream away from home-owners to the general public in other forms.  Those that will benefit from this the most are those that are paying the highest property tax which is (you guessed it) the ultra rich.  And the people who will see the biggest percentage of increase (from sales tax or whatever it turns out to be) will be the working poor.  As usual.

And then it will probably run up the debt, as they always do while pretending to be hawks.  It's a good scam.

I haven't boned up on the particulars yet but my initial reaction is that I am leaning towards it right now. I'm a home owner so I would see the break.

This is the rub.  You might see a small benefit, personally.  You will have increased prices elsewhere, but they may not be as much as you will save in the property tax.

It will help the ultra rich mansion owners greatly.  They will bank.  That's a small amount of people.

But it will hurt those below you, which is the majority of the people here.  It's just another class separator and that kind of thing hurts the general economy because the super wealthy that are saving from this aren't pumping that money back into the economy -- they sit on it like Smaug.  It also further locks up the housing market, IMO.

I have seen the inside of government first hand. Worked 13 years for Seminole county and work regularly now with Orange, Seminole, and Lake Counties, as well as the City of Orlando and many others. I know people elected who have no idea what they are doing. I know them personally. It's a popularity contest and the guy or gal who led the class with great ideas are rarely in local offices. Heck .... for that matter much of the State Legislatures are in over their heads. If they were businesses they would all file bankruptcy every time they could. They are the only people in the world who do not have to set a liveable budget and keep it or face consequences. As it is, they just increase the bill for us taxpayers.

]

If I am reading the bill correctly (and maybe I am not) it doesn't sound like it.  It is an exemption on the first $250,000.  So if you own a house worth less than $250,000 you don't pay the tax.  If you own a house worth $2,250,000 you are still paying tax on $2 million.  if you own a house worth $300,00 you will be getting a massive tax cut, if you own a house worth $5 million you will barely notice the cut. That is a progressive tax, that benefits the middle class more than the ultra rich. 

The bigger problem Florida has is the limits on reacessing value.  A house purchased in 1970 might have a market value of $2 million dollars but an assessed value of only $200,000, while a house purchased last year for $400,000 is going to have an assesed value of $400,000.  This results in a regressive tax rate. 

Fair enough, I stand corrected.

It was sold as an elimination of property taxes.

Still hurts renters, but is much less troublesome that I had anticipated.

This could be exploited, I guess, and I know that it prevents people from moving out of their houses where the assessed value is more than they paid, so moving would screw them in taxes.  It freezes things, for sure.

But in my situation, I bought a normal single-family home and then in about a 3 year period, it literally doubled in value.  My house value is crazy for "what it is" and if I had to pay taxes on the market value, I'd almost be forced to sell.  It's just not a workable situation.

That's the goal.  It's a feature, not a bug.

Conservatives campaign on the idea that government is the problem and prove it when they get into office.  They WANT government to work poorly.

Again, I would say "working as intended."

House prices in CA are very high for a similar reason: we also have a cap on the amount property taxes can rise.  What voters don't seem to understand is that these two things are linked, and lowering taxes is what MAKES house prices high.

People shop for homes based on the monthly mortgage note they can afford to pay.  If interest rates or property taxes are high, then that means buyers (at every level) have to shop for less expensive homes, which pushes prices down.  Conversely, if property taxes or interest rates are low, that means people can afford to take out a larger loan, which pushes house prices up.

If property taxes were at market value, it's not like millions of Floridians would just go homeless.  The housing market would fall until house price+property tax is in line with incomes.

There are several things to unpack here. I've been seeing so much propaganda from both sides on this issue.

First off, state real estate values have skyrocketed and state property tax revenue has nearly doubled since 2019. Consequently, nearly all Florida counties are holding record high surplus reserves. Florida property tax revenue has greatly outpaced inflation and population growth since 2019. In my opinion, the cost of running local governments isn't tied to real estate values. Under the current system, if everyone's house doubles in price 6 months and their taxes go up how does that valuation number on a tax appraisers piece of paper make the cost of running the local government go up? Where is that money going? And more importantly, how am I benefiting from it?

Second, local pet projects and corruption are out of control. The tax revenue should only be spent on infrastructure and essential services. Yesterday I was talking about this to my brother who lives in St Johns County. He relayed that they are currently planning to build several libraries, parks, splash pads, dog parks, playgrounds, walking trails, and pickleball courts among other things. Hundreds of millions of dollars for things that aren't needed. Just like the federal government, local governments are making the same mistake that most financially illiterate people make. Not understanding the difference between "wants vs needs". Not to mention the salaries some of them make. Miami's city manager makes $475,000 a year, with a 20% pension, top line health/dental care, a city furnished vehicle, and a travel allowance. For context, the Governor of Florida makes roughly $141,000 annually and the President of the United States only makes $400,000.

Third, don't fall for the propaganda. All I've been seeing lately on the news and social media is articles with the politicians crying about how they will have budget shortfalls. Seeing as how they have record surpluses based off of years worth of overinflated home prices. They don't have a revenue problem, they have a spending problem. Only around 45% of the homes in florida currently have the homestead exemption and school taxes are exempt. Plus there is a strict 5-year homestead residency requirement built into the new property tax amendment. New residents cannot claim the homestead exemption for 5 years. Going by the math, it seems to me this is more like fear mongering and begging.

And finally, on the other end of the spectrum. While this bill does raise the homestead exemption, it doesn't go far enough to protect that exemption. It does not prohibit the counties from implementing other ways to replace the lost revenue. There is nothing restricting them from raising local sales taxes, implementing special assessments, raising tourism taxes, or impact fees. So, if the bill passes we may be paying less in property taxes. But those savings could be offset by new charges. Or hell, we might be paying more. Which kind of proves my last point of fear mongering by the politicians.

At the end of the day, you might never get this chance again. If you don't vote yes for this ammendment and in 10 years when your property taxes double or triples from where it currently is, that's what you voted for. At that point you can't complain.

Not when having their budgets double or triple from just 5 years ago. Why should people keep on paying this much for the same exact services that we’ve have all along but they're only using half or less of the current money and running surpluses?

I'm not sure if you figured it out yet, but politicians are like children. If you give them a whole box of cookies, they'll eat as many as they can. Kind of like the idiots that win the lottery and buy a bunch of silly shit for a few years. Then wind up living with in their grandmother's mobile home sleeping on the couch. That's the level of incompetence of most politicians. The only way to limit the outflow is to limit the inflow.

I recognize this as true.

There is also the reality that things like minority owned properties will go up in value, the taxes come with it and push out these families that have lived there.

I don't like the idea of the home that I've already purchased growing out of my price range after I've already bought it.  I think we need to encourage families to put down roots.



We also have a separate issue here where people buy up several houses or companies own single family homes and then just rent in perpetuity.  Also bad.

Housing here is fucked.



I am not even coming across as dead-set against the property tax thing.  I think there's a balance.  However, I do reject the idea that the government being full of unqualified bozos and overspending on stupid shit -- that you can combat this by reducing their revenues.  They don't fix their problems with a lack of money; they just go into debt.

There is a fundamental contradiction here.

On the one hand, you are saying that if there is a budget surplus, the government should NOT be spending that extra money, but rather returning it to the people while spending stays the same.  But then when there are budget deficits, you don't think taxes should be raised to cover that shortfall.  Instead, deficits are "a spending problem," so we should cut services... until government is back into surplus, at which point it's time for more tax cuts?

You are describing a one-way ratcheting of government, where even the services deemed to be important must be cut because It's A Spending Problem, and that spending is never restored when budgets are back in surplus.  As I said earlier, it is the approach of those who believe government is the problem and spend their time in power trying to prove it.

I'm saying that a major cause of this is when taxes are too low.  Incomes are what they are... if property taxes rise to the point where the majority of people cannot afford to pay their mortgage+taxes, the price of houses will necessarily decline until this is no longer the case.

That doesn't help a person like me where I am settled into my home and don't have intention to move. I need my mortgage and tax to be affordable for me now.

Sure it does: your property tax is based on the value of your home, which is tied to the value of recent sales among your neighbors.  If those homes are affordably priced (and your local government hasn't yet been so gutted that you cannot file for a property tax reassessment), your property tax will be as affordable as theirs is, and your mortgage is unaffected.

But here we run into the other big obstacle to American housing affordability: existing homeowners want their property value to be sky high but their property taxes to be on the ocean floor.  So if there is a circumstance where your property taxes and value are driven way down, you (as a homeowner) are going to be pissed off, despite the fact that your home actually became MORE affordable (because your taxes went down).

All of this stems from Americans treating their homes as retirement investment plans instead of a place to live, which is itself a symptom of the nationwide destruction of REAL retirement plans like pensions.

I totally 150% agree with this statement. However, would you also agree that owning a home is owning an asset?

I don't care about property value except for the relationship to taxes. I don't plan to buy another home,  I don't have kids to leave it to. As a matter of fact I will probably look at a reverse mortgage when older just to get that cash in hand and the bank can have it when I die.

Be careful with reverse mortgages.  Often there is a clause where you lose the house if you don't die soon enough.

It's definitely an asset, though as anyone who was a homeowner during the Great Recession can tell you, sometimes it's a depreciating asset.

Many homeowners would be quite upset if the value of their home declined below the amount they owe on it (even if they can still comfortably afford to pay the mortgage).  Speaking of which:

If you owed more than the house was worth (i.e. if property values plummeted again like they did in 2008), a reverse mortgage would not be available to you.

I figured there is some tricky language to go through. It seems they want you to think the deals are too good.

I bought a l9ng time ago. My house would be paid off.

I have no problem with it.   I own my home and will die owning it.   That being said, countries like the Cayman Islands or the Bahamas operate the same way.   No property taxes.   If you buy a house, it's yours.

This just doesn't happen, at least at the Federal level.  Republican administrations always cut taxes with the promise of cutting "waste, fraud, and abuse" but they continually blow up the deficit.

It's fair to say that Dems spend too much.  But Republicans cut taxes and also spend too much.

Clinton was the last person to balance the budget.
W. Bush increased by 4 trillion over 2 terms. (high income tax cut and war)
Obama was 8.4 over 2 terms. (recession crawlback)
Trump was 7.8 over 1 term (high income tax cut and initial COVID response)
Biden was 7 trillion over one. (infrastructure, COVID, rescue plan)
Trump's 2nd term is increasing the deficit at 1.9 trillion per year, which is the highest ever, I believe.

It's not exactly apples to apples since inflation changes things and W. Bush and Clinton are decades in the rear-view, but there just doesn't seem to be a throughline between cutting taxes to force cuts to spending with any meaningful effect.