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, Education

Workforce Development in Florida: A Literature Review

Workforce development is crucial to long term economic vitality, but developing effective policies involves complex interactions between local, state, and federal education boards, retraining programs, universities, firms, and more. Further complicating this dynamic are the destabilizing effects of globalization and technological innovation which perpetually change the skills needed in the labor market. By examining the academic literature on workforce development, insights emerge that help account for these complexities, and may enlighten the crafting of effective policies. In particular, the literature calls for new approaches to early childhood learning, primary and secondary education, mentorship programs, and worker retraining. Designing effective workforce development policy requires drawing on the wealth of knowledge provided by academic and scientific research; the purpose here is to stitch the relevant literature together so as to develop a comprehensive approach to workforce development.

James Heckman is a Nobel laureate in Economics and one of the leading labor market economists. In his 2000 paper “Policies to Foster Human Capital,” Heckman provides a comprehensive analysis of labor development policy, calling attention to important failures while providing alternative policy suggestions. In particular, Heckman (2000) stresses the primacy of early childhood in laying the foundation for continued success in life. Building on neuroscientific evidence and numerous longitudinal studies, Heckman & Masterov (2007) make the economic argument for investing more in young children, showing how at current levels of spending, government agencies underinvest in the young and overinvest in the old. A large body of research supports this argument: studies have shown that an early childhood program can from improve cognition, to increase educational attainment, and even reduce the likelihood of teen parenthood. Taking a closer look at an influential longitudinal study, the Abecedarian Project, will be helpful in showing how early intervention leads to such effective outcomes.

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