By David L. Snelling

Miami – A Fla. senator is championing a bill which would lift the burden of taxpayers struggling to pay property taxes amid rising rates that hit a record high in 2023.

Amid the Fla. legislative session, Sen. Blaise Ingoglia (R-Springs Hill) has filed SB 1018 to increase the $50,000 homestead exemption to $75,000 for residents who qualify.

If approved by the Rep.-controlled legislature, residents will be asked to approve a referendum to raise the homestead exemption to $75,000, which Ingoglia said would be the largest tax cut in Florida history.

That’s an estimated $2.6 billion in property tax revenue that local governments collect to fund municipal services such as police, fire, public works and infrastructure projects.

“Property taxes are skyrocketing, and Floridians are demanding relief,” Ingoglia said in a statement. “The current homestead exemption doesn’t cut it anymore. That’s why I’m filing for a new $75,000 homestead exemption that will be adjusted for inflation every year. When your home value goes up, so does your exemption.”

Florida Rep. Gov. Ron DeSantis is pushing for a higher homestead exemption.

DeSantis said some local governments misspend and waste taxpayers’ dollars and proposes to raise property taxes to offset budget shortfalls.

He said Florida residents in metropolitan markets including Miami, Tampa and Jacksonville have seen their post pandemic property tax bills skyrocket.

“I’d rather protect you and limit their ability to tax your (property),” Desantis said on social media. “Voters (should) have an opportunity to rein in the cost associated with property taxes and get further protections for Florida taxpayers. I think that would be really good, and I think that would be a great thing to leave to future generations.”

Increasing homestead exemption would help Florida’s most vulnerable residents: Senior Citizens.

Most senior citizens live on a fixed income and some of them lost their homes due to unpaid property taxes they couldn’t afford to pay or overlooked.

According to the Florida Beliveau Law Group, which specializes in estate planning, many senior citizens who paid off their mortgages aren’t used to paying property taxes.

That’s because they were paid directly by the lender, and each year in Florida about $7 billion to $10 billion in property taxes are left unpaid, and the taxing authority places a lien against the properties.

The unpaid taxes increase due to late fees and other penalties, and senior citizens experiencing financial hardship can’t cover the costs to remove the liens.

Local governments settle the debt by selling their tax liens at an auction and the elderly lose their homes they have worked so hard over the years to pay off.

“Some states require local authorities to wait for a year or two before selling a tax lien, but some allow them to sell a lien after just a few months – which means that an elderly person who misses a payment could have a problem escalate quickly,” the Florida Beliveau Law Group said in a statement.

Even senior citizens who qualify for Florida’s homestead exemption fall behind on property taxes as their income barely covers food, medication and transportation.

In addition, roughly 15,000 Florida senior citizens who take out a reverse mortgage lose their homes each year because they don’t keep up with property taxes and insurance, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

If DeSantis has his way, Florida residents wouldn’t pay property taxes at all.

The governor has said he’s looking into the possibility of eliminating property taxes altogether, which are Florida’s second-largest source of per capita revenue after federal transfers.

DeSantis said doing away with property taxes also cuts down on wasteful spending by shifting them over to sales taxes.

DeSantis created the state’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a task force similar to the Elon Musk-led federal agency to cut down on excessive government expenses.

DeSantis said the state’s DOGE would audit local government’s spending plans and in the future eliminate property taxes.

“I think that a lot of these local budgets have ballooned in recent years,” DeSantis said during a press conference in Tallahassee before the start of the session. “I think that there’s been a lot of spending. I don’t know that the taxpayers have always had a seat at the table. I don’t know that the visibility on how the money has been spent has been very good. But we’re going to find out.”