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

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Florida Politics: Winners and losers emerging from the 2021 Legislative Session

Florida TaxWatch — It’s safe to say the nonpartisan watchdog is a winner. Several of their long-standing priorities got top billing this year, including e-fairness, which President and CEO Dominic Calabro and his team have been outspokenly championing since the internet was little more than a series of tubes. Better yet, the online sales tax bill delivered on three other TaxWatch priorities: refueling the re-employment trust fund, slashing the business rent tax, and a technical fix to modernize the sales tax process, changing the estimating process to a rounding rather than bracket system. FTW also provided key backup in the fight for COVID-19 liability protections. Their research — timely and thorough, as always — paved the way for the passage of SB 72 back in March. Their pandemic economic recovery recommendations made over the summer, their quick-turnaround economic impact of the data privacy bill (which the Legislature used to craft a better and more targeted final product), and the critical questions they asked about the controversial M-CORES toll road plan adds the repeal to its pile of victories. Clearly, Florida TaxWatch is a force to be reckoned with.

In on the win: Taxpayers, who can trust FTW, will make sure the hard-earned money they send to Tallahassee is being used responsibly.

 

Originally Published in Florida Politics.

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