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Vague, secret deals: no way to fix taxes

By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published June 5, 2007

One week from today, the Florida Legislature opens a special session to consider the most sweeping changes to property taxes in decades. Yet key legislators are negotiating in secret, refusing to release written documents and keeping taxpayers and most of their colleagues in the dark. Florida's property tax system needs an overhaul, but springing a complicated backroom deal on lawmakers, local governments and homeowners at the last minute is a prescription for disaster.

A three-page letter signed by Senate President Ken Pruitt and House Speaker Marco Rubio is the only public document that offers the outline of an agreement. It sketches out plans to force local governments to immediately cut property taxes and cap future property tax revenues, and to ask voters to approve a constitutional amendment to completely change the way homesteaded property is assessed for tax purposes. The amendment would call for primary homes to be assessed on a percentage of their value, with different percentages tied to different levels of value.

That's it. No numbers. No details. No nothing. But rest assured, Gov. Charlie Crist and legislative leaders remain optimistic. This is no way to build confidence in sweeping tax reform. It is unfair to local government officials who can't plan for the future. It is unfair to businesses that can't invest when they can't be sure of the tax structure. And it is unfair to homeowners who can't evaluate how they would be affected and whether it is time to buy, sell - or move to North Carolina.

These are fundamental changes to the tax structure that require time to digest. The Legislature is poised to play city council and county commission for all by imposing property tax rollbacks and revenue caps. The constitutional amendment would replace the existing $25, 000 homestead exemption and, for most homeowners, Save Our Homes, which limits annual increases in values on homesteads for tax purposes to 3 percent. The impact of such a sweeping overhaul cannot be understated, and it is foolish for lawmakers to roll out an intricate plan and expect it to be embraced immediately by their colleagues and the public.

After a few more secret meetings and telephone calls, legislative leaders are expected to hand down the formulas and percentages for calculating their proposed tax rollbacks and homestead exemptions. There will be precious little time to evaluate the impact and fairness, but lawmakers should insist they get time to talk with their constituents and to propose alternatives. They also should recall the last time they made wildly inaccurate promises to Floridians about relief and passed complicated legislation few of them understood. Or have they deluded themselves into believing the property insurance crisis has been solved?

The governor, back from a weeklong trip to Israel, also needs to get engaged. Crist made a cameo appearance Monday at a legislative committee meeting on tax relief, expressed optimism and received applause. For a governor whose own future could turn on the outcome of the property tax debate, that is simply not good enough. He needs a firm grasp of the details, and he needs to offer more to a skeptical public than vague assurances that everything will be just fine.

[Last modified June 4, 2007, 23:10:18]