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, Education, Local Government, Taxpayer Guide

Finding the True Cost of Public Education

Per-student spending is an easy-to-use measure by which taxpayers can evaluate public school spending and efficiency. Most taxpayers, however, have little or no idea how much is spent per student in public schools. The most commonly reported per-student spending figures in Florida are based solely on funding provided through the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP). For the 2016-17 school year, Florida public schools will spend an average of $7,178 “per student” in FEFP funding.

But this figure, which is published in legislative budget summaries and widely cited by the media, can be misleading since it does not reflect total spending per student. Funding for a number of other programs and services (e.g., debt service, school construction, etc.) is provided to school districts in addition to FEFP funding and is reported separately.

The Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) calculated an average expenditure per unweighted FTE based on reported District expenditures for the Fiscal Year 2015-16 of $10,308, which includes expenditures such as debt service, capital outlay, and other funds that are reported separately from FEFP funds. Why is it important to include debt service, capital outlay, and other K-12 funds in per student spending calculations? Because taxpayers should have a thorough understanding of how their tax dollars are being spent. A more thorough and informed understanding of funding sources makes school funding more transparent to taxpayers. Transparency helps to promote accountability, and Florida taxpayers have every right to see how government spends their tax dollars.

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