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

/ Categories: Research, Budget/Approps

Budget Watch - FLORIDA GENERAL REVENUE COLLECTIONS HAVE OUTPACED ESTIMATES FOR 14 CONSECUTIVE MONTHS

The Florida TaxWatch Budget Watch series1 has been detailing the rapid recovery of the state government’s revenue collections from the initial precipitous drop in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We have highlighted how current General Revenue (GR) estimates are back above the last pre-pandemic estimates (January 2020). Coupled with billions of dollars in federal aid, Florida is in enviable fiscal shape as the Legislature heads into the 2022 Regular Session.

And now there is additional good fiscal news. Actual GR collections for August and September exceeded the estimate made just a couple of months ago (August 2021) by $331.9 million and $442.2 million, respectively. Actual GR collections are now $789.4 million above the current estimate just three months into FY2021-22.2 This comes after the August 2021 General Revenue Estimating Conference added $1.409 billion to the estimate for FY2021-22--plus $317.6 million from the new Seminole Gaming Compact and $309.1 million from revenue changes passed by the 2021 Legislature.3 This means that it is now estimated that the state will collect at least $2.825 million more4 in FY2021-22 than was anticipated when the 2021 Legislature developed the current budget, which already totaled a record $101.654 billion.

Most of the GR sources outperformed expectations, with only a handful of sources coming in below estimate. These were relatively minor losses, totaling $14.3 million over the two months. While the positive revenue performance was fairly widespread among sources, two of them—sales taxes and corporate income taxes— accounted for the vast majority of the gain--$675.3 million, or 87.2 percent. (See Table 1)

All six sales tax categories beat the estimates over the two months, with only Business Investment falling short in one month. (See Table 2). This sector lost $12.0 million against the estimate in August, but more than made up for it in September, gaining $54.1 million. Consumer Nondurables and Tourism and Recreation were the top performers, topping estimates by $201.1 million and $180.9 million, respectively. Sales tax collections in a particular month largely reflect the sales activity of the previous month. The Office of Economic and Demographic Research credits the increased activity to the benefit from the most recent round of stimulus checks to households, redirected spending from the hard-hit (non-sales taxed) service sector and consumers’ ability to draw down large savings that they built up during the pandemic.

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