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

The Effects of a Border-Adjusted Tax on Florida's Property Insurance Market

The U.S. House of Representatives’ Tax Reform Task Force recently unveiled its “Blueprint” for comprehensive tax reform, including a proposal to make the federal corporate income tax “border adjustable.” The Blueprint does not discuss precisely how the border adjustments would work, so it is unclear whether or how such a mechanism would apply to reinsurance transactions; however, if the tax is applied to such transactions, then it would significantly affect the cost of reinsurance, and, ultimately, property and casualty insurance for consumers. Property insurers rely heavily on foreign reinsurance to diversify low-frequency-high-severity natural catastrophes, so states most vulnerable to catastrophic losses—such as Florida—would be most impacted by applying a border-adjusted tax to reinsurance.

To inform policymakers and taxpayers of the potential impact to Florida, this report analyzes the effects of applying a border-adjusted tax to reinsurance transactions, and estimates the impact of such a tax on Florida’s policyholders, the property insurance market, taxpayers, and the economy.

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