Don’t overdo Florida people while offering a pass to businesses

This year’s legislative conference is essentially a political platter, offering a bit of everything: political infighting, lobbyist-led supportism, some good bills and more.

But everything exploded when lawmakers were unable to pass the budget and were able to send the sessions to overtime.

The main point of the competition is tax reform. Governor Ron Desantis wants to focus on property taxes, but some GOP lawmakers want to consider sales tax.

Well, I’m here today to suggest that these people are staging the wrong argument. Instead of focusing on how much money you pay with taxes at your home or cash register, they should be looking at how little businesses are.

Because now, the state’s tax system is balanced with evil, forcing citizens to impose tax burdens on this state while most businesses ride freely. Yes, most of it.

Most Floridians pay property taxes and virtually all pay sales taxes, but would you like to guess which percentage of Florida companies pay corporate income tax?

Do you think it’s 90%? Probably 80%.

Try 1%.

As a result, you, an individual taxpayer, will bear most of your tax burden.

The National Tax Foundation says Florida has one of the lowest corporate tax burdens in the United States. But you’re facing above average sales tax, high gas tax and the most toll road miles in America.

Also, corporate tax dodges change Floridians briefly. It is one of the worst public school systems in the country, with over 20,000 families with disabilities on the service’s long-standing waiting list.

Much of this was detailed in a detailed series produced by the Orlando Sentinel several years ago, called “Big Profits, Tiny Taxes.”

This series showed how Florida allowed companies to shuffle profits and losses through a maze of subsidiaries to dodge tax payments. In most states, all businesses need what is called a “composite reporting,” a single tax return. That’s not the case in Florida.

As a result, companies like eBay, which recorded $34 million worth of profit mined from Florida for a year and should theoretically pay $1.8 million in taxes, could only pay $18,810.

How often did you get a 99% discount on your taxes?

One tax law expert told the Sentinel at the time: “Florida’s corporate income tax is leaking like a sieve.

Listen, I know tax policy can be boring. Heck, I actually fell asleep while typing the phrase “composite report.”

But this leads to you paying higher taxes. And more toll roads. And lose the AP class offering to your kids. When one group of taxpayers get a break, only one of two things happens, so the service is reduced or the other taxpayers pay more. In recent years, GOP lawmakers have been cutting business taxes by over $5 billion while hiking more than $1 billion in taxes on consumers.

Big corporations and their doll politicians don’t like to talk about all of this. In fact, when I last wrote about all of this, Florida’s business lobby was surprised and launched a PR push claiming that the low corporate tax has become an economic utopia for employers to flock to Florida.

Some of their claims were Barony.

When the Florida Chamber of Commerce cried out that the state was home to “home to 19 Fortune 500 businesses,” it was hoping that 19 would be in fact pathetic in a state of this size. Half of our size has more than that condition. In fact, Florida is the lowest per capita of Fortune 500 companies in the large US state. The decline in corporate tax rates is almost as opposed to a workforce filled with educated, trained employees and solid quality of life.

Another fake argument for low corporate taxes is that it leads to lower consumer prices. Again, Barony. Florida has the lowest corporate tax burden, but has above average living expenses.

One of the best stories to prove that corporate tax sluts don’t lead to consumer savings involves SeaWorld.

A few years ago, the company was able to avoid paying taxes altogether. The Seaworld CEO actually boasted to investors with a revenue call and said, “We won’t be taxpayers for the next few years. That’s a huge advantage for us.”

So, do you want to guess what SeaWorld did that year when it managed to dodge taxes entirely? Ticket prices have been increased.

People who argue that consumers will always benefit from corporate tax credits want you to be ignorant of the facts. Companies can use tax savings on everything from CEO pay and bonuses to buybacks and reserve inventory.

If lawmakers really want to see meaningful tax reform, they will see the elephant funded by the huge lobbyists in the room – corporate tax avoidance in this state. Instead of gimmicking around the edge with gimmicks like “holidays” in sales tax or a one-off $1,000 rebate check.

True reform requires systematic change. This is the last thing corporate lobbyists want.

In fact, while chitting legislators to not reach budget contracts on time, DeSantis said lawmakers should stick to the status quo. “To be honest, it’s not that difficult to do something like this,” he said. “Do you know what you’re doing? You just look back at what’s been done over the past six years. And basically copy and paste it.”

Well, that’s exactly what corporate lobbyists want – mainly to maintain your tax burden.

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