Gov. DeSantis: Property tax relief, not sales tax cuts, is Florida's priority
Instead of a $5 billion cut in sales taxes as proposed by House Speaker Daniel Perez, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday said he wants to provide a $1,000 tax break to all homestead property owners in the state.
'People are not clamoring for sales tax: They're clamoring for property tax relief. There's no property tax relief in that proposal,' DeSantis said at a conference of the Florida Realtors in Orlando.
Sales tax cuts also would help tourists who visit and spend in Florida, not just Florida residents, something that a cut aimed at homestead property owners would achieve, he added.
'I want Canadian tourists and Brazilian tourists subsidizing the state and making it so Florida residents pay less taxes,' DeSantis said. 'I don't want to give Canadians a tax cut.'
Last week, Perez, R-Miami, said his chamber will move forward with a plan to cut Florida's sales tax from 6% to 5.25%, saving consumers collectively about $5 billion per year. The bill isn't yet public, but the $113 billion House budget released Friday is built around that plan.
That measure isn't part of the Senate's spending plan, which is $117.4 billion, or $4.4 billion more than the House's plan. The two chambers will pass their respective budgets off the floor next week before entering negotiations on a final spending plan.
The sides much reach a deal before May 2, the last day of the legislative session, to avoid a special session.
Such a large sales tax cut could preclude DeSantis' push for a large tax cut directed at homesteaded properties to be placed on the 2026 ballot.
DeSantis said he wouldn't veto a sales tax cut, but insists on property taxes being reduced. One of the main differences between the two plans is the Legislature can reduce the sales tax on its own, while main methods to cut property taxes – either through an increase in the homestead exemption or imposing stricter caps on annual assessment increases – can only be done by changing the state's constitution.
Bills to put large property tax cuts on the 2026 ballot, however, haven't advanced in the Legislature.
A measure (SB 1018) from Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, to increase the homestead exemption from $50,000 to $75,000 and a bill (HB 357) from Rep. Ryan Chamberlin, R-Belleview, to create a $100,000 exemption on all properties in the state haven't received a hearing.
Even if the bills were to pass, the proposal would require 60% of voter approval in November 2026, and wouldn't take effect until 2027.
To provide more immediate property tax relief, DeSantis wants to eliminate the state portion that contributes to property taxes: The piece that goes to public schools, known as the required local effort (RLE).
Under DeSantis' plan, state reserves would be used to backfill the elimination of the RLE for one year, and lawmakers would be required to provide a $1,000 cut to homestead property owners. DeSantis said the proposal was just the 'opening salvo' in the push to get a greater property tax cut on the 2026 ballot.
Democrats, stuck in superminority status in both chambers of the Florida Legislature, are tentatively supportive of the cut in sales taxes but want to see more specifics before committing support to Perez's plan.
'Our caucus has probably forever talked about the sales tax as a very regressive policy,' House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell of Tampa told reporters last week. 'We understand that we don't have a state income tax and we need to hear more details about where he plans to make up this $5 billion in revenue that we're cutting.'
Gray Rohrer is a reporter with the USA TODAY Network-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at grohrer@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @GrayRohrer.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida sales tax cut or property tax relief? DeSantis takes a stand
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hamilton Spectator
44 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Canada condemns Iran's attack on Israel, calls for de-escalation: Anand
OTTAWA - The Canadian government is condemning an Iranian attack on Israel after a barrage of long-range missiles was launched at Tel Aviv in retaliation for an Israeli strike in Iran. Israel attacked Iranian missile and nuclear sites Friday and Iran warned of 'severe punishment' before launching its missiles in response. Foreign Minister Anita Anand said Canada is urging restraint on both sides and that further actions could cause 'devastating consequences' for the broader region. Anand said the U.S.-Iran negotiations represent the best path to achieving a 'lasting and peaceful resolution' to Iran's nuclear program, adding that diplomatic engagement remains essential to ensuring long-term regional stability and international security. 'Iran cannot obtain nuclear weapons,' Anand said on social media Friday evening. 'Iran's continued efforts to pursue nuclear weapons, support for terrorists, and direct attacks on civilian centres embody Iran's persistent threat to regional stability and to Israel, which has the right to defend itself. 'Canadians in the region are encouraged to remain vigilant and to register with the embassy in order to receive timely updates.' The Israeli strike involved more than 200 aircraft and about 100 targets, according to Israel's military. Iran confirmed the deaths of three of its top military leaders and launched more than 100 drones at Israel in response. Israel said the drones were being intercepted outside the country's airspace. Israeli leaders described the attack as a pre-emptive strike to head off an imminent threat by destroying Iran's ability to build nuclear weapons. Iran maintains its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only. After a meeting with the National Security Council, Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters Friday evening that the government was monitoring the situation 'closely.' At this point, Canada has not announced any changes to embassy staffing in Israel and the broader region. Canada closed its embassy in Iran in 2012. The U.S. evacuated some people from its embassy in Iraq before Israel attacked Iran. MP Robert Oliphant, Anand's parliamentary secretary, told reporters Friday that Iran is a 'wild card' in the Israel-Hamas war. '(Iran is) obviously using proxy wars at various times in various places, and so we will never defend Iran while we always stand with the people of Iran,' he said. He said Canadian diplomatic staff in the region are being protected through 'strong measures' but was unable to say whether plans are in the works to pull them out or boost embassy safety protocols. Dennis Horak, Canada's last ambassador to Iran, said that if Ottawa chooses to evacuate embassies in the region, its first step would be to order dependants and non-essential staff to leave. 'There are contingency plans for all of the embassies to have about evacuation plans and things like that, and those will be dusted off and may be reviewed,' Horak said. 'Ideally, out of our embassy in Israel, there would be a desire to get at least dependants out, but again the logistics of that may be challenging.' While Israeli airspace is currently closed, Horak said Canadians could leave by road for Jordan. With Canada hosting the G7 next week, Horak said it's an 'opportune' time for world leaders to discuss the conflict in the Middle East. 'How success would be defined is a whole other story,' he said. 'So I think it's fortunate timing, actually.' Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Israel has the right to act to defend itself by 'disarming' Iran before it has the capability to launch a nuclear strike. 'We should all hope that this is the end of the regime's nuclear program and that the great Persian people can now rise up to reclaim their country from the totalitarian regime,' Poilievre said on social media. 'All levels of government must take extra steps to protect Canada's Jewish community from vile antisemites who may use these events as an excuse for more acts of violence.' NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson condemned Israel's actions in a media statement. 'While we have long condemned Iranian leadership, including the (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), this illegal act by Israel will only provoke further violence,' she said. In a media statement, B'nai Brith Canada called on the federal government to support Israel. 'An Iran armed with nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles is an existential threat to the entire world,' the advocacy body said. 'For years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has worked relentlessly to develop nuclear weapons, arm terrorist proxies with weapons of mass destruction, and openly call for the annihilation of Israel and the West. Yesterday, Israel acted decisively to prevent a global catastrophe.' — With files from Catherine Morrison and The Associated Press This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 13, 2025. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
Hamilton Spectator
an hour ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Political violence is threaded through recent US history. The motives and justifications vary
The assassination of one Democratic Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband, and the shooting of another lawmaker and his wife at their homes, is just the latest addition to a long and unsettling roll call of political violence in the United States. The list, in the past two months alone: the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C. The firebombing of a Colorado march calling for the release of Israeli hostages, and the firebombing of the official residence of Pennsylvania's governor — on a Jewish holiday while he and his family were inside. And here's just a sampling of some other disturbing attacks before that — the assassination of a health care executive on the streets of New York City late last year, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in small-town Pennsylvania during his presidential campaign last year, the 2022 attack on the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by a believer in right-wing conspiracy theories, and the 2017 shooting by a liberal gunman at a GOP practice for the congressional softball game. 'We've entered into this especially scary time in the country where it feels the sort of norms and rhetoric and rules that would tamp down on violence have been lifted,' said Matt Dallek, a political scientist at Georgetown University who studies extremism. 'A lot of people are receiving signals from the culture.' Politics behind both individual shootings and massacres Politics have also driven large-scale massacres. Gunmen who killed 11 worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, 23 shoppers at a heavily Latino Walmart in El Paso in 2019 and 10 Black people at a Buffalo grocery store in 2022 each cited the conspiracy theory that a secret cabal of Jews were trying to replace white people with people of color. That has become a staple on parts of the right that support Trump's push to limit immigration. The Anti-Defamation League found that from 2022 through 2024, all of the 61 political killings in the United States were committed by right-wing extremists. That changed on the first day of 2025, when a Texas man flying the flag of the Islamic State group killed 14 people by driving his truck through a crowded New Orleans street before being fatally shot by police. 'You're seeing acts of violence from all different ideologies,' said Jacob Ware, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who researches terrorism. 'It feels more random and chaotic and more frequent.' The United States has a long and grim history of political violence, from presidential assassinations dating back to the killing of President Abraham Lincoln to lynchings and violence aimed at Black people in the South to the 1954 shooting inside Congress by four Puerto Rican nationalists. Experts say the past few years, however, have likely reached a level not seen since the tumultuous days of the 1960s and 1970s, when icons like Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. Ware noted that the most recent surge comes after the new Trump administration has shuttered units that focus on investigating white supremacist extremism and pushed federal law enforcement to spend less time on anti-terrorism and more on detaining people who are in the country illegally. 'We're at the point, after these six weeks, where we have to ask about how effectively the Trump administration is combating terrorism,' Ware said. Of course, one of Trump's first acts in office was to pardon those involved in the largest act of domestic political violence this century — the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol, intended to prevent Congress from certifying Trump's 2020 election loss. Those pardons broadcast a signal to would-be extremists on either side of the political debate, Dallek said: 'They sent a very strong message that violence, as long as you're a Trump supporter, will be permitted and may be rewarded.' Ideologies aren't always aligned — or coherent Often, those who engage in political violence don't have clearly defined ideologies that easily map onto the country's partisan divides. A man who died after he detonated a car bomb outside a Palm Springs fertility clinic last month left writings urging people not to procreate and expressed what the FBI called 'nihilistic ideations.' But, like clockwork, each political attack seems to inspire partisans to find evidence the attacker is on the other side. Little was known about the man police identified as a suspect in the Minnesota attacks, 57-year-old Vance Boelter. Authorities say they found a list of other apparent targets that included other Democratic officials, abortion clinics and abortion rights advocates, as well as fliers for the day's anti-Trump parades. Conservatives online seized on the fliers — and the fact that Boetler had apparently once been appointed to a state workforce development board by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz — to claim the suspect must be a liberal. 'The far left is murderously violent,' billionaire Elon Musk posted on his social media site, X. It was reminiscent of the fallout from the attack on Paul Pelosi, the former House speaker's then-82-year-old husband, who was seriously injured by a man wielding a hammer. Right-wing figures theorized the assailant was a secret lover rather than what authorities said he was: a believer in pro-Trump conspiracy theories who broke into the Pelosi home echoing Jan. 6 rioters who broke into the Capitol by saying: 'Where is Nancy?!' On Saturday, Nancy Pelosi posted a statement on X decrying the Minnesota attack. 'All of us must remember that it's not only the act of violence, but also the reaction to it, that can normalize it,' she wrote. Trump had mocked the Pelosis after the 2022 attack, but on Saturday he joined in the official bipartisan condemnation of the Minnesota shootings, calling them 'horrific violence.' The president has, however, consistently broken new ground with his bellicose rhetoric towards his political opponents, who he routinely calls 'sick' and 'evil,' and has talked repeatedly about how violence is needed to quell protests. The Minnesota attack occurred after Trump took the extraordinary step of mobilizing the military to try to control protests against his administration's immigration operations in Los Angeles during the past week, when he pledged to 'HIT' disrespectful protesters and warned of a 'migrant invasion' of the city. Dallek said Trump has been 'both a victim and an accelerant' of the charged, dehumanizing political rhetoric that is flooding the country. 'It feels as if the extremists are in the saddle,' he said, 'and the extremists are the ones driving our rhetoric and politics.' Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Political violence is threaded through recent US history. The motives and justifications vary
The assassination of one Democratic Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband, and the shooting of another lawmaker and his wife at their homes, is just the latest addition to a long and unsettling roll call of political violence in the United States. The list, in the past two months alone: the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C. The firebombing of a Colorado march calling for the release of Israeli hostages, and the firebombing of the official residence of Pennsylvania's governor — on a Jewish holiday while he and his family were inside. And here's just a sampling of some other disturbing attacks before that — the assassination of a health care executive on the streets of New York City late last year, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in small-town Pennsylvania during his presidential campaign last year, the 2022 attack on the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by a believer in right-wing conspiracy theories, and the 2017 shooting by a liberal gunman at a GOP practice for the congressional softball game. 'We've entered into this especially scary time in the country where it feels the sort of norms and rhetoric and rules that would tamp down on violence have been lifted,' said Matt Dallek, a political scientist at Georgetown University who studies extremism. 'A lot of people are receiving signals from the culture.' Politics behind both individual shootings and massacres Politics have also driven large-scale massacres. Gunmen who killed 11 worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, 23 shoppers at a heavily Latino Walmart in El Paso in 2019 and 10 Black people at a Buffalo grocery store in 2022 each cited the conspiracy theory that a secret cabal of Jews were trying to replace white people with people of color. That has become a staple on parts of the right that support Trump's push to limit immigration. The Anti-Defamation League found that from 2022 through 2024, all of the 61 political killings in the United States were committed by right-wing extremists. That changed on the first day of 2025, when a Texas man flying the flag of the Islamic State group killed 14 people by driving his truck through a crowded New Orleans street before being fatally shot by police. 'You're seeing acts of violence from all different ideologies,' said Jacob Ware, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who researches terrorism. 'It feels more random and chaotic and more frequent.' The United States has a long and grim history of political violence, from presidential assassinations dating back to the killing of President Abraham Lincoln to lynchings and violence aimed at Black people in the South to the 1954 shooting inside Congress by four Puerto Rican nationalists. Experts say the past few years, however, have likely reached a level not seen since the tumultuous days of the 1960s and 1970s, when icons like Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. Ware noted that the most recent surge comes after the new Trump administration has shuttered units that focus on investigating white supremacist extremism and pushed federal law enforcement to spend less time on anti-terrorism and more on detaining people who are in the country illegally. 'We're at the point, after these six weeks, where we have to ask about how effectively the Trump administration is combating terrorism,' Ware said. Of course, one of Trump's first acts in office was to pardon those involved in the largest act of domestic political violence this century — the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol, intended to prevent Congress from certifying Trump's 2020 election loss. Those pardons broadcast a signal to would-be extremists on either side of the political debate, Dallek said: 'They sent a very strong message that violence, as long as you're a Trump supporter, will be permitted and may be rewarded." Ideologies aren't always aligned — or coherent Often, those who engage in political violence don't have clearly defined ideologies that easily map onto the country's partisan divides. A man who died after he detonated a car bomb outside a Palm Springs fertility clinic last month left writings urging people not to procreate and expressed what the FBI called 'nihilistic ideations.' But, like clockwork, each political attack seems to inspire partisans to find evidence the attacker is on the other side. Little was known about the man police identified as a suspect in the Minnesota attacks, 57-year-old Vance Boelter. Authorities say they found a list of other apparent targets that included other Democratic officials, abortion clinics and abortion rights advocates, as well as fliers for the day's anti-Trump parades. Conservatives online seized on the fliers — and the fact that Boetler had apparently once been appointed to a state workforce development board by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz — to claim the suspect must be a liberal. 'The far left is murderously violent,' billionaire Elon Musk posted on his social media site, X. It was reminiscent of the fallout from the attack on Paul Pelosi, the former House speaker's then-82-year-old husband, who was seriously injured by a man wielding a hammer. Right-wing figures theorized the assailant was a secret lover rather than what authorities said he was: a believer in pro-Trump conspiracy theories who broke into the Pelosi home echoing Jan. 6 rioters who broke into the Capitol by saying: 'Where is Nancy?!' On Saturday, Nancy Pelosi posted a statement on X decrying the Minnesota attack. 'All of us must remember that it's not only the act of violence, but also the reaction to it, that can normalize it,' she wrote. Trump had mocked the Pelosis after the 2022 attack, but on Saturday he joined in the official bipartisan condemnation of the Minnesota shootings, calling them 'horrific violence.' The president has, however, consistently broken new ground with his bellicose rhetoric towards his political opponents, who he routinely calls 'sick' and 'evil,' and has talked repeatedly about how violence is needed to quell protests. The Minnesota attack occurred after Trump took the extraordinary step of mobilizing the military to try to control protests against his administration's immigration operations in Los Angeles during the past week, when he pledged to 'HIT' disrespectful protesters and warned of a 'migrant invasion' of the city. 'It feels as if the extremists are in the saddle," he said, 'and the extremists are the ones driving our rhetoric and politics.'
