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

/ Categories: Research, Taxes, Budget/Approps

Session Spotlight: 2019 Tax Package

On Thursday, May 2, the Senate took up the tax package passed by the House (HB 7123) and adopted a strike-all amendment that put the Senate package on the bill. It kept many of the provisions (with some changes), added some new provisions, and removed one controversial provision, and changed another.

After considerable behind the scenes negotiations, the House took the tax package up Friday night and added a couple more amendments, including a brand new provision that had not been considered this session and one that changed a controversial charter school provision again. After some heated debate, the Senate accepted the amendments and passed the bill at 11:10 pm. It was a surprisingly close 23-17 vote. The previous Senate vote on the bill was 38-2.

Several of the Senate additions were part of its tax package last session but were not included in the final bill. The Senate bill provides $48.5 million in one-time tax savings and $73.0 million in recurring savings. The House bill had $47.1 million in one-time and $114.0 million in recurring savings. Here are the provisions of the final bill and how it differs from the original House package.

Documents to download

Print
3017 Rate this article:
No rating

x