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

Budget Watch - Final GR Estimates Set Stage for Tough Budget

The General Revenue (GR) Estimating Conference met recently to determine how much money will be available to the 2017 Legislature for the new state budget. This was the last meeting before the budget is finalized, so lawmakers finally know exactly how much they can spend (absent any measures they may pass that affect revenue, such as tax cuts). The news was not bad, but anyone hoping for a large infusion of funds into the process was disappointed. There will be $77.8 million more available that previously estimated last December.

The Conference increased its revenue forecast by $106.8 million in the current year (FY 2016-17) and by only $8.4 million for the next budget year (FY 2017-18). This $115.2 million in additional revenue collections over the two years is partially o set by additional emergency hurricane spending that occurred since the last estimate.

The state is now expected to collect $29.559 billion this year and $30.718 billion next year. These amounts represent growth over the prior year of $1.234 billion (4.4 percent) and $1.257 billion (3.9 percent), respectively. For the rest of the years in the forecast horizon (through FY 2021-22), growth ranging from 3.3 percent to 4.3 percent is expected.

The underlying state and national economic estimates were largely unchanged. The estimate of revenue coming in from the various GR sources was actually increased by only $5.0 million over the two year- period; up $32.8 million in the current year but down $27.8 million in FY 2017-18. However, lower than expected corporate income tax refunds caused estimated refunds to be scaled back considerably: $110.2 million over the two years. Refunds were the largest single change in the new forecast. Fewer refunds increase the GR bottom line, so it is now estimated that net GR collections will be $115.2 million more than the previous estimate.

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