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

New Labor Data Shows Weaker Labor Market Than Previously Expected

New Labor Data Shows Weaker Labor Market Than Previously Expected

Florida TaxWatch Blog

Florida TaxWatch has been keeping an eye on the changing labor market since the Covid-19 pandemic. A November 2023 commentary titled “Florida's Labor Resilience: Navigating the National Cool-Down and Local Market Dynamics,” showed that the national as well as state level labor market shows signs of cooling down. Every year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases a preliminary revision of their job opening and employment numbers for the past year.

On September 9th, 2025, the BLS released their preliminary revision of job openings and employment numbers from April 2024 to March 2025. The revision shows that the U.S. had 911,000 fewer job openings than previously recorded, indicating a weaker labor market over the past year. If these preliminary numbers persist, it will be largest negative revision since the March 2000 revision.

The preliminary revision was released just after another gloomy labor market report by the BLS. Their monthly Employment Situation Summary showed employment increasing by only 22,000 new jobs across the nation in August 2025. In the same release, the BLS revised their June and July 2025 numbers, showing 26,000 fewer jobs than previously reported. The national unemployment rate in July 2025 was 4.3 percent, the highest since late 2021. From January 2025 to August 2025, the U.S. has added fewer than 600,000 jobs.

According to BLS data, Federal government employment and manufacturing employment have seen larger job losses than other industries over the last year --- 97,000 and 78,000 respectively. Survey results from the New York Federal Reserve show that people believe they have only a 45 percent chance of finding a new job if they lose their current job.

Florida’s unemployment rate was 3.7 percent in July 2025, lower than the national rate of 4.3 percent. Florida also ranked third in the most job gains by state in July 2025, adding 134,000 in employment. As of May 2025, there were 1.11 job openings for every unemployed person in Florida. Data shows that Florida’s labor market is better than the national labor market, with an unemployment rate lower than the national rate for 57 consecutive months. Among large metropolitan areas, the BLS reported 2.4 percent lower employment in the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford area in March 2025.

The Federal Reserve meets every month to discuss the federal funds interest rate, which is the rate at which banks lend reserves to each other. This rate is also used to stimulate economic factors like national inflation, purchasing power, and employment. Since January 2025, the federal interest rate has remained unchanged at 4.25 to 4.5 percent. The rates have been steady in hopes of curbing inflation and bringing it down to two percent, as unemployment numbers were not concerning until now. The latest revision data, however, will likely push the Federal Reserve to cut rates in their next meeting this month to 4.00 to 4.25 percent.

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