LOWERING FLORIDA’S PROPERTY TAXES?

An Opinion By Jan Bergemann

Published November 4, 2025

Already during the last legislative session legislators were talking about solutions to lower Florida’s property taxes. Governor Ron DeSantis were seriously pushing the issue, but the House, led by Speaker Daniel Perez, was obviously more into lowering the sales tax. Lowering the property taxes would help Floridians while lowering the sales tax would help the tourists. I guess Floridians would be more in favor of lowering property taxes.

We heard the argument: Lowering property taxes wouldn’t help renters! Actually, that’s absolutely not true. Every landlord figures into the amount of rent the cost of property insurance and property tax.

And it looks like Speaker Daniel Perez and the House members have changed their mind (or maybe their mind was changed?). The House created the HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON PROPERTY TAXES and State Representatives and Senators already filed various BILLS (see PRIORITY BILLS) and HOUSE + SENATE JOINT RESOLUTIONS (HJR 201 – HJR 213; SJR 270, 278), but according to media reports Governor Ron DeSantis is still not satisfied with the property tax deduction contained in all these proposals. Florida has a huge surplus in tax income, and our Governor wants to give some back to Florida’s homeowners.

According to State Rep. Toby Overdorf, R-Stuart, who chairs the Select Committee on Property Taxes, the committee has identified eight initial proposals for potential relief, including eliminating non-school homestead taxes, improving the homestead exemption, capping tax increases and eliminating what’s known as portability restrictions. The committee emphasized that these rate-cuts will not impact school taxes in any way, nor police and fire.

Florida’s homeowners and condo owners are looking forward to see the rates of property taxes lowered by quite a bit, because even if county commissioners in many counties are telling owners that they are not increasing the rates, the bills are going up. They just hope that owners overlook the fact that they are increasing the value of homes year for year, meaning that the property tax bills have gone up and up and up.

Let’s tell our LEGISLATORS: The more the property taxes will go down, the merrier your voters will be at the election next November!

Please let us know how you feel about property taxes being decreased?