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, Taxes

Calling for Clarity: Florida’s Confusing and Conflicting Scheme for Taxing Government Leaseholds Needs Legislative Attention

Florida’s taxation of government-owned property when it is leased by a non-government entity falls well short of the goals for good tax policy, including fairness, simplicity, transparency, and ease of administration. It has been shaped more by the courts than the Legislature.

The question of how (or whether) to tax this property has been “dealt with by the Florida Constitution, the legislature, and the courts in a somewhat confusing manner” for more than sixty years.1 Two ongoing court cases in Hillsborough County highlight the need for legislative clarification.

Questions Raised by the Law:

  • It is vital that taxpayers can easily understand their tax obligations under the law, and the current statutory law on governmental leaseholds does not provide that clarity. In reviewing old case law and other writings on the issue, it is striking how often the convoluted and confusing evolution of the law is mentioned.
  • Much of the non-clarity of the law is due to there being two taxes in play here—local property taxes and state intangibles taxes. While some of the statutes appear to relate to both taxes, the courts have said they do not.
  • Section 196.193 (2)(a) states that if a lessee serves or performs a governmental, municipal, or public purpose or function it is exempt from both ad valorem taxation and the intangible tax and in all such cases, all other interests in the leased property shall also be exempt from ad valorem taxation.

Florida TaxWatch recommends the Legislature should undertake a comprehensive overhaul of the law governing the taxation of governmental leaseholds with a special focus on what should be exempt, making sure the law clearly represents its intent (whatever that may be). If both the real property tax and the intangibles tax are necessary, the two taxes should be separate, and the law should clearly delineate how and if the two taxes should apply.

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