It’s simple: YOU pay more. THEY pay less. And we ALL lose with cuts to police, fire, and other vital local services!
When Florida voters go to the polls in November, they’ll decide on a complex package of tax changes that will have major consequences for the Sunshine State—most of them “unintended.”
We know it’ll cost tens of billions. But the politicians haven’t told us how they’ll pay for it. This amendment could eventually bleed $34 billion from local government budgets.
The costs and consequences of this amendment will show up as HIGHER rent, MORE EXPENSIVE everyday purchases, COSTLIER first homes, and in FEWER small businesses that can’t absorb an increase in commercial property taxes.
The math doesn’t work
There are only two possibilities:
Three things every Florida voter should know:
Public Safety is on the line.
Public safety is the single largest budget item in more than 80% of Florida communities, consuming more than half of every general fund dollar spent. Deputies, firefighters, paramedics. When billions leave the tax base with no replacement plan, that’s where the cut lands. There’s no version of this math where it doesn’t.
There's no such thing as a free lunch.
The Governor’s original plan included a trust fund to backfill lost revenue to local budgets. The Legislature deleted it. Nothing replaced it—which means your wallet replaced it. The cost of funding squad cars and building roads doesn’t vanish. It shows up as higher sales taxes, higher fees, higher burdens on small businesses, which lead to higher costs for everything you buy.
The ballot has a secret.
Buried in the amendment language is a legal mandate that could easily be overlooked: the Legislature must eliminate homestead property taxes entirely, on a fixed schedule. It doesn’t matter how it affects public safety, traffic, water, hurricane preparedness or anything else.
The bill doesn’t go away.
It gets shifted.
You've heard the promise: Lower property taxes. More money in your pocket. What the ballot doesn't tell you is who picks up the tab.
Squad cars, sidewalks, roads, bridges, and fire stations don’t magically become cheaper because homestead property taxes are cut or eliminated. The cost shifts. And the people who decide where it lands won’t be the ones living with the consequences.
So who pays?Everyone.
You’re supposed to be the winner here, but the devil is in the details. Homeowners above $250,000 will instead absorb a larger share of a shrinking tax base as millage rates rise to close the gap. Homeowners below it get the exemption — and higher fees, rising sales taxes, and costs that filter down from businesses that can’t absorb their share either.
If you own a home
If you do business in Florida
When billions disappear from the local tax base, the burden compresses onto everything else. Small businesses are what’s left to squeeze. Businesses and commercial properties already carry nearly two-thirds of Florida’s entire property tax burden.
If you rent
You don’t get the tax break. You get the bill. Here’s why: Apartment buildings and rental homes aren’t homesteaded, so this amendment doesn’t cut their taxes. When the local tax base shrinks, communities still have to fund law enforcement, roads, water management and every other critical service. So landlords get a bigger bill, and rent rises.
If you’re buying your first home
Young families trying to buy their first home get the worst of both sides. Higher impact fees at closing, because communities need to cover the funding gap. And a tax base that’s been hollowed out, leaving fees and charges to cover what property taxes no longer fund.
If you shop
Florida’s sales tax is 6%. It may not stay that way. The Tax Foundation notes that sales taxes would need to rise to more than 15% if property taxes are eliminated. In some communities, it would exceed 30%. A sales tax increase hits hardest on working families who spend most of what they earn, and unlike a property tax break, it offers no exemptions for the people who can least afford it.
If you live in a rural area
Big cities have commercial properties, corporate offices, and tourism infrastructure to cushion the blow. Smaller communities don’t. Suburban and rural Florida relies more heavily on homeowner property taxes. When that base shrinks, there’s no large commercial sector to absorb the difference. There’s just less. Less for roads, for deputies, or for the fire station that covers a 40-mile radius.
The promise was lower taxes. What wasn’t promised: that roughly half of Florida’s counties won’t be able to fund basic services without going to Tallahassee for grants. That taxpayers in solvent communities will subsidize the shortfall in struggling ones. That the people deciding how your town funds its deputies and fire stations will be legislators who don’t live there.