Gov. Ron DeSantis has escalated a dispute with the House Speaker over how to cut taxes this year, saying he wants to save Floridians around $1,000 on the property tax bill over the next year.
At a press conference Monday, Desantis said he wanted the state to take some tabs of property taxes on the property assets of around five million homes. The maneuvering would save those homeowners about $1,000 on the property tax bill, he said.
The proposal not included in the budget that Desantis proposed for the next fiscal year is in response to the surprise announcement last week of House Speaker Daniel Perez, who had hoped to shave 0.75% of the state’s sales tax forever.
Cutting sales taxes saves Floridians about $5 billion each year. This is the same amount as DeSantis’ suggestion.
“One is not seeking sales tax relief, but property tax relief,” DeSantis said Monday. “The proposal does not provide property tax relief.”
DeSantis said another issue with the house initiative is that it will benefit anyone who spends money in Florida, such as “foreigners…visitors and part-time residents.”
“I think tax exemptions need to focus on Floridians,” DeSantis said. “We need the Florida First Tax Package.”
Senate President Ben Albritton wrote in a memo Monday that he was open to “all the above” approaches regarding two competing tax enforcement efforts, but he hoped to make the new tax cuts “mainly” and “mainly” for just one year.
“If you have to raise two years to address budget shortages, you’re rarely going to cut taxes,” Albritton wrote to the Senator. His comments refer to a forecast by state economists that Florida will face a $10 billion shortfall over the next three years.
Perez told the Times/Herald that he was “pleasant that the governor has embraced record spending cuts in the House.”
“We welcome the Governor’s proposal and look forward to more conversations about how we can provide meaningful tax relief to all Florida to make Florida more affordable, but just as important is reducing the size and excess of government at all levels,” Perez said.
Perez told reporters last week. While he supported the asset tax cuts, Congress said it had no direct control over it in reducing sales taxes.
Desantis said earlier this month that lawmakers wanted to eliminate or reduce property taxes in view of constitutional amendments to the 2026 vote. Changes to property taxes require approval from at least 60% of voters in the election.
If lawmakers approve it before the legislative meeting is scheduled before it ends on May 2nd, the Desantis idea will give homeowners relief.
“This will be a kind of opening salvo of what will happen to the main event in November 2026,” he said.
