ST. PETERSBURG - Why do people pay taxes on a movie ticket but not on an exotic dance? That's a question John McKay wants answered.
The former Senate president from Bradenton, teamed with former state Sen. Jack Latvala of Palm Harbor, kicked off an effort Wednesday for a constitutional amendment to force lawmakers to publicly justify hundreds of sales tax exemptions.
"Simply said, the sales tax is not in synch with our economy," McKay told the Suncoast Tiger Bay Club.
The two former Republican legislators failed to persuade their colleagues to support an ambitious plan to eliminate about $1-billion in tax exemptions. Now they want an amendment on the ballot next year that would require a periodic review of every sales tax exemption. They want them looked at one by one. They want every legislator to stand up and say he supports or opposes them, from exemptions for charter fishing trips to lap dances.
McKay said the state hasn't had a major overhaul of its tax system since 1949. Since then, about 300 items have been exempted from the 6 cent state sales tax. Examples range from satellites and space vehicles to an adult escort and a haircut. Many agricultural items, such as seed, feed and fertilizer, are exempt.
Latvala said he regretfully voted for many of the exemptions in the Senate but said that many were sneaked through.
The two have formed a political action committee called FAIR - Floridians Against Inequalities and Rates - and Latvala said they will kick off a major fundraising campaign to get the nearly 500,000 signatures required to get the initiative on the ballot in 2004.
The amendment would likely be opposed by many lawmakers and businesses that enjoy exemptions.
Gov. Jeb Bush opposed McKay's plan last year and his position hasn't changed, a spokesman for the governor said Wednesday. Their battle brought the Legislature to a virtual standstill.
"We've had 15 months of job growth," spokesman Jacob DiPietre said. "Florida's economy is one of the best in the nation. Those fiscal policies are working."
Jon Shebel, who represents some of the state's largest businesses as president and CEO of Associated Industries of Florida, said McKay should leave his concerns about the state's tax system to lawmakers.
"That is the job of the Legislature and the governor: to find, define and establish the tax base," Shebel said.
McKay and Latvala declined to give details of their amendment until the formal announcement, but both said the goal would be to have lawmakers review and readopt each exemption, one at a time, to make certain they are relevant. How often they would be reviewed is unclear.
McKay said the sales tax applied to 68 percent of goods and services sold in 1968. It has since dropped to 42 percent, he said.
The compromise McKay accepted last year that ended the deadlock was a proposed amendment creating a special legislative panel with the power to eliminate exemptions. But an appeals court panel said it was misleading and barred it from the ballot.
McKay said he has enlisted a team of lawyers, economists and a former state Supreme Court justice to study drafts of the amendment, which was still being worked on Wednesday and was not available to reporters.
"They are not going to go away unless you force the Legislature to take a vote on it," McKay told the group at Tiger Bay.
Latvala bristled when someone in the audience asked if the two would be asked to leave the Republican Party for advocating the amendment. He said he was active in the party when Gov. Bush "was in prep school" and House Speaker Johnnie Byrd was "an elected official in Alabama."
"It irritates me that I would be called "not a loyal Republican' because we don't do what the people in power say we should," Latvala said. "We have an attitude of where we want our state to be: We want a tax system that is fair."
