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 - New Estimates Add More than $2 Billion to Available GR for the Budget Now Being Developed By The Legislature

The General Revenue Estimating Conference (REC) met on April 6 and increased Florida’s general revenue (GR) projections by $1.476 billion in the current budget year and $551 million in FY2021-22.1 This two-year total increase of $2.027 billion, coupled with the $2.109 billion increase from the December 2020 REC, restores more than three-fourths of the $5.4 billion two-year reduction in the estimates adopted in August 2020 – the first REC after COVID-19 hit Florida.

As the 2021 Legislature develops the next state budget, the fiscal position the state finds itself in is remarkable when it appeared, just a little more than a year ago, that we were heading towards a fiscal disaster. The Legislature will now have $38.5 billion in GR available for the next budget, almost $1 billion more than anticipated back in March 2020 when
the current budget passed and before pandemic-related costs and revenue losses were considered.

Documents to download

Print
2237 Rate this article:
No rating

x