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

Pay for Performance Contracting

There are a few basic principles that all students are taught when they take Economics 101: the fundamentals of supply and demand, the concept of GDP and, of course, how to incentivize individuals in order to achieve the most effective and efficient outcome. Using incentives as a way to maximize outcomes is fundamental to everyday economics and nearly everyone encounters the practice in one way or another.

The idea of incentives begins at an early age, whether it’s a gold star for doing well on a spelling test or an ice cream party for making the honor roll in elementary school. Eventually, these incentives evolve into job promotions or salary increases. Whether consciously or not, the use of incentives is ingrained at an early age as a way to push individuals or groups to do their best work.

With this in mind, it should come as no surprise that incentives are used in government contracts as a way to motivate private and public entities to reach certain goals. Typically referred to as either performance-based contracting or pay for performance (PFP), these contracts are specially formulated so that contracted entities are paid for the outcomes or results of their work, and not just the services that are provided. PFP contracts also minimize the financial risk to taxpayers by allowing the government entities to only pay providers when the provisions in the contract are successfully met.

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