Abolishing Florida Property Taxes is it true?

Hi Brian - This will be my first post - so bear with me here.. you can see what Is being considered in January at the Broward County Property Appraiser website- http://www.bcpa.net/ and that will show what is - and yes there was talk in the legislature in the beginning, many months back of abolishing the tax.

There are several citizen propositions being circulated in case the vote is not sufficient to pass what the legislature has put on the ballot.

Yes - one of them is abolishing the real estate tax and upping the sales tax to 1 or 2.5% - each group will have various percentages.

Do any other states have NO real estate tax?

Do any other state have NO Income tax - as Florida does NOT have an income tax?

Do other states have Sales Tax above 6% - and what is that sales tax?

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The state has been working on a plan to present to the voters in January. As you suggest there are lots of problems with the way property tax is assessed now:  1)the homestead exemption and save our homes provision apply only to homesteaded property.  As a result a long-time resident will pay a whole lot less that their snowbird neighbor.  2)SOH makes it difficult for some longtime homeowners to move, It's possible you could sell your big expensive home. and downsize to a little condo and your property tax would increase.. 3) the runup in valuation in 2004 and 2005 made for big increases in property tax for non-homesteaded property. (pissed off the snowbirds and business owners and investors)

There were several proposals made to address tax reform and make the system fair or fairer. one of which (my favorite) would have abolished property taxs and replaced it with an increase in the sales tax, another plan would have created a super homestead exemption where the first 200000 of valuation would be 80 or 85% exempt and the next 300000 15% exempt....none of these passed. What did pass is a more modest proposal that will increase the homestead exemption to 50k, make the SOH portable and limit the increase in taxable valuation for commercial and investment property to 10% a year.