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

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Other Resources

Florida Disaster.biz
FEMA
Florida Department of Financial Services
Florida SBDC
Disaster Contractors Network
Florida Disaster Fund

Florida TaxWatch Statement on Hurricane Ian Recovery

Community Involvement

/ Categories: Research, Budget/Approps

Budget Watch - Outlook Assumes Legislature Will Sweep Trust Funds

Florida’s state forecasters estimate that the 2019 Legislature will have a $223.4 million budget surplus when it puts together the state’s new spending plan for FY 2019-20. However, this assumes the Legislature will transfer nearly $400 million from trust funds—money earmarked by law for specific uses—into the General Revenue (GR) Fund. Without the trust fund sweeps, an estimated shortfall of $78.9 million exists, climbing to $169.1 million if the Legislature passes tax cuts.

This information is contained in the new Long-Range Financial Outlook, recently adopted by the Joint Legislative Budget Commission. This constitutionally required annual report compares estimated revenues and expenditures to give the Legislature a sense of the state’s budget position going into session and whether lawmakers can expect a budget shortfall or surplus (for more description of the Outlook, see Appendix).

The Outlook further estimates the state will be facing shortfalls of $47.8 million in FY 2020-21 and $456.7 million in FY 2021-22, even with trust fund sweeps. This is due to the continuing “structural imbalance,” where the growth of the state’s recurring expenditures exceeds the growth of recurring revenues.

The Outlook recommends the Legislature adopt a “fiscal strategy” to address the imbalance and clear the shortfall in FY 2021-22. There are many ways to get there, but in the simplest terms, it would take a reduction in recurring expenditures of $199 million to eliminate the future shortfall.

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