The poorest 20 percent of Floridians pay state taxes at five times the rate of the richest 1 percent. But if you ask House Speaker Johnnie Byrd, "nothing's broken."
Published February 8, 2004
Dog food in Florida is taxed but ostrich feed is not, which brings us to House Speaker Johnnie Byrd. While other lawmakers at least wince when asked to explain why the state exempts 440 products and services from the sales tax that most ordinary people pay, Byrd said recently he thinks "there's nothing broken."
Nothing broken? The sales tax, first adopted more than a half-century ago, has become so riddled with exemptions lawmakers have carved out for lobbyists and businesses that the state now collects $18-billion in sales tax for every $25-billion it excludes.
Nothing broken? The poorest 20 percent of Floridians now pay state taxes at five times the rate of the richest 1 percent. In just the past five years, the corporate income tax has dropped by 25 percent while the sales tax has increased by 28 percent.
Nothing broken? The sales tax is charged on fishing rods but not on charter fishing boats, on lawn mowers but not lawn services, on hair care products but not hairstyling salons, on pool chemicals but not pool services, on a general admission football ticket but not for the luxury skybox. Detect a pattern here?
The speaker's delusion may explain why the House last year refused to even hear a bill, passed unanimously by the Senate, that would have removed the ostrich feed exemption. It also explains why three distinguished former Republican state office holders are traveling the state with a petition that would force the Legislature, through constitutional amendment, to vote up or down every single special-interest tax exemption.
John McKay, a Republican businessman from Bradenton, tried as Senate president to get his colleagues to do something about the inequities, but he could get nowhere. So he has joined with former state Comptroller Bob Milligan and former state Sen. Jack Latvala to form a group called FAIR, Floridians Against Inequities in Rates, in an attempt to force a statewide vote.
Under the FAIR amendment, the Legislature would be required by 2007 (and every 10 years after) to individually approve, by three-fifths vote, each sales tax exemption. In the absence of such approval, an exemption would die. Because the target is special-interest exemptions, the amendment specifically excludes food, prescription drugs, health serves, rent, electricity and heating fuel from the scrutiny. They would remain exempt.
Says McKay, whose legislative attempts were relentlessly attacked by business lobbyists: "I don't know of any other way we accomplish this other than to ask the people."
In the Legislature that McKay left behind, in fact, not much has changed. A Senate tax committee met last month to consider removing tax breaks for stadium skyboxes and ostrich feed. Afterward, Sen. Bill Posey, a Rockledge Republican, showed his own exasperation.
"Of the 16-million people in Florida, I have not heard from one that felt the skybox exemption made sense or the ostrich feed exemption made sense," Posey told a newspaper reporter. "But apparently, there is one person in Florida who thinks it makes sense, and that's the speaker of the House. Because this legislation's not moving over there."
Under the tax system that Byrd says is not broken, Florida taxes the family dog but not the ostrich. Maybe he just has an affinity with creatures that bury their heads in the sand.
