Former Senate President John McKay and former Sen. Jack Latvala want the Legislature to examine every single tax break in Florida and vote to keep or reject it. Who could object to that?
Published August 10, 2003
Florida doesn't tax much by national standards, but the kicker is who it asks to pay the most. In the Sunshine State, families that earn $24,000 or less each year pay at four times the rate of those who earn $289,000 or more, and one of the reasons is the state Legislature's fondness for tax breaks. Those who bargain to get them are home free; those who don't are asked to make the difference.
The numbers are disturbing. In the past five years alone, lawmakers have handed out more than $8-billion in tax breaks. The state now collects $17-billion in sales taxes while it exempts $23-billion. That means that, for every $1 the average person pays in sales tax, someone else is getting a $1.35 break.
John McKay, the past Senate president, and Jack Latvala, one of his Senate colleagues, tried to do something about that inequity, but found that the businesses that benefit from the tax breaks weren't about to give them up. So now they are on a valiant mission, one where they hope to neutralize that lobbying influence by taking the issue straight to voters. McKay and Latvala want to gather enough signatures to place the issue before voters next year, and their aim is a modest one. They simply want to require the Legislature to examine every single tax break, individually, and vote to keep it or reject it.
Who could possibly object to an honest and open debate about tax exemptions? You guessed it. The same businesses who fought McKay when he was president.
"This is simply not fair," says McKay. "There are a lot of exemptions that ought to remain in place, but there are a number of them that don't make sense. It seems very naive for one to say that our tax system should remain static while everything else in the world is changing."
The state's sales tax structure hasn't changed for more than a half-century, and the last time lawmakers tried to remove some of the exemptions, in 1987, they ended up surrendering. The result was that the statewide rate was hiked, from 5 to 6 percent. Those without exemptions, in other words, were asked to pay even more.
Getting the tax-exemption issue to the ballot will be a tall order, even for two former politicians as well-connected as McKay and Latvala. Already, Gov. Jeb Bush and some business groups are sneering. But their arguments are propelled by little more than self-interest. What passes for leadership in the Capitol these days are people who pretend that lunch is free, and that we can always make the other guy pay if it isn't.
Tom Lee, the current Senate rules chairman, told his colleagues earlier this year that he is fed up with such gamesmanship. "Year after year, we're ignoring some of the realities of our future in favor of what I consider to be political expediency, and we're passing along the problems to future leaders and future generations; declaring victory, pretending there isn't a problem, and moving on. The day of reckoning is coming."
The Legislature shouldn't need a constitutional amendment to force a fair and honest look at tax exemptions, but, in the modern political climate, an amendment is the only way it will ever happen. "We've got to do something," says McKay. "This is not about Republicans or Democrats or the Green Party. It's about Florida. We're all Floridians, and my roots are deep. It's long past the time for us to fix the hole in our roof."
This campaign will be about tax fairness. How can anyone oppose that?
