Gov. Ron DeSantis takes issue with a major national newspaper panning November’s homestead exemption increase ballot measure as a form of “progressive” taxation.
While historically “progressive” taxes, such as the federal income tax, are seen as ways to make people with means pay more than people who don’t have much disposable income, DeSantis rejects the framing from the Wall Street Journal as missing the point of lifting the homestead exemption to $250,000 by 2028.
“It applies to all FL homesteads, modest to extravagant,” DeSantis said of the measure that must be approved by at least 60% of voters this fall.
The WSJ editorial board chides the Governor, saying it’s a “shame” DeSantis is “using his final months in office to push a poorly designed measure on the November ballot that would put his state on the slippery slope of a progressive property tax regime.”
Redistribution of the burden is guaranteed, the argument continues, since “shrinking the tax base in this way will inevitably drive localities to shift the burden to other forms of property.”
The editorial page also suggests that Florida homesteaders already get a break, since “the state constitution limits the annual growth in the latter for primary homes to the lesser of inflation or 3%, and 10% for commercial property.”
“That means businesses and people with second homes already pay more in property tax than year-round residents,” the WSJ writers argue.
DeSantis says the conservative business publication is simply “defending bloated local budgets and opposing property tax relief for Florida homeowners,” and is recycling discredited canards to that end.
“Florida hasn‘t raised the homestead exemption outright since 1980 and the last partial exemption increase was enacted almost 20 years ago. Both times people made similar arguments against property tax relief,” DeSantis said.
Whether DeSantis wants to accept the framing of the proposal to increase exemptions as progressive or not, he’s made the case that it is by saying it would be “disproportionately helping people who are middle class and working class.”
“Very little benefit for somebody that’s super-wealthy, really good benefit for somebody that maybe bought a house three or four years ago for $350,000,” he said Wednesday in Brooksville.
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