9 Actions Florida Should Take to Help Taxpayers Impacted by Hurricane Ian

1.     Postpone tax notices and waive penalties or interest for late tax filings in affected areas

2.     Extend the date for residents to take advantage of the tax discounts they would normally receive for paying property taxes and special assessments in November and postpone or defer the deadline for property tax installment payments

3.     Protect individual and business taxpayers from the risks for notices that they will likely not receive because their home or business addresses is not accessible anymore

4.     Issue no new audits in severely impacted areas, extend the statute of limitations and postpone existing audits that haven’t reached the assessment stage because these can’t be responded to while entire communities are still recovering

5.     Create procedures for fairly estimating taxes which can’t be calculated because records have been destroyed by the storm, moving away from the current method which significantly overestimates activity if no records are available

6.     Initiate procedures to offer payment plan assistance for late taxes, rather than resorting to the standard collection methods, like liens, levies, or bank freezes

7.     Retroactively apply the recently passed law that provides property tax refunds for residential property rendered uninhabitable as a result of a catastrophic event

8.     Provide tangible personal property relief and allow n on-residential properties rendered uninhabitable to receive property tax refunds

9.     Get Congress to pass a Disaster Tax Relief Act that includes provisions from past packages, including elements such as an Employee Retention Credit, an enhanced casualty loss deduction, and other relief provisions

Other Resources

Florida TaxWatch Statement on Hurricane Ian Recovery

Community Involvement

2015 How Florida Compares - Education

The 2015-16 school year ushers in a new era for education in Florida. Florida educators have worked hard to make the state a national leader in education, closing the achievement gap, expanding school choice, and improving graduation rates.

To build on that success, the 2015 Florida legislature appropriated historic levels of funding for public education, with a renewed emphasis on testing, student assessment, and teacher evaluations.

The amount of time students spend on state and local testing was capped at 5 percent of the total school hours, not to exceed 45 hours. The reliance on test results to evaluate teacher performance was reduced from 50 percent to 33 percent of a teacher’s evaluation. The 11th-grade language arts test (ELA) and the Postsecondary Education Reading Test were eliminated, as was the requirement that a school district administer a local end-of-course assessment for each course that is not assessed by a statewide, standardized assessment.

The rollout schedule for statewide, standardized computer-based testing and backup paper testing options were codified through the 2017-2018 school year. The validity of the statewide, standardized assessments must be independently verified before the results can be used to determine third grade retention or high school graduation.

We hope you will use this guide as a resource to better understand how public education in Florida compares to public education in other states.

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