'Florida first': DeSantis would rather steer $5 billion in tax cuts toward property owners

Insisting more Floridians are clamoring for cuts to their property taxes than sales taxes, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday attempted to hijack the proposal just announced by House Speaker Danny Perez to save Floridians nearly $5 billion in sales taxes and said that instead the Legislature should direct that cut towards property taxes.

Perez announced last week that he wanted to cut the sales tax for all Floridians this year from 6% to 5.25% — which, if passed, would save them nearly $5 billion. DeSantis dismissed the idea on Monday, though, saying that while well intentioned it would do nothing for Floridians hungering for property tax relief.

A sales tax cut isn’t the first place to go when it looks to providing relief for Floridians, he said.

“I want Canadian tourists and Brazilian tourists subsidizing the state, making it so Florida residents pay less less taxes,” DeSantis said at the Florida Realtors office in Orlando. “I don’t want to give Canadians a tax cut.”

He later doubled down, emphasizing that a sales tax wouldn’t be well directed.

“It also allows relief for foreigners. It allows for relief for visitors and part-time residents,” he said. “I think that tax relief needs to be focused on Floridians. We need a Florida First tax package.”

DeSantis has been speaking for more than a month about providing property tax relief, potentially by placing a constitutional amendment on the ballot next year to eliminate the ability of local governments to collect property taxes.

He took the House’s proposal as evidence that chamber is up for providing billions in tax cuts, and “if that’s something that they’re willing to discuss, we’ll accept that, but we’ll come with a proposal to focus that $5 billion on reducing property taxes for people in Florida.”

He added that if the Legislature agrees to that idea, it would be the “opening salvo” in providing major property tax relief for Florida homeowners, because he still hopes the Legislature will vote to place a constitutional ballot on the 2026 ballot removing local property taxes.

State pays the difference?

Such a proposal could result in approximately $1,000 in property tax cuts for every homesteaded Floridian, the governor said. Although most property taxes go to local governments, the state could cut what is known as the Required Local Effort, which pays for schools, he continued. He suggested the state could make up that difference through its budget reserves.

“We don’t need people to pay property taxes on that specific line-item,” he said. “So we would roll that back to zero. We’d also roll back some of the local lines and issue a rebate and that’s how you end up getting to the $1,000 per resident or homesteaded property.”

The Phoenix reached out to Perez’ office for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

Senate President Ben Albritton said last week that he was “open-minded” about Perez’s proposal to cut the sales tax.

“Everybody knows right now we have an affordability challenge with many families in Florida,” he said during a press conference on Thursday. “We’re reviewing what the proposal looks like and we’ll see where it goes, but, to be clear, we are supportive of lower taxes in Florida.”

Florida ranks near the middle of the states for per capita property tax revenue, according to the Florida Policy Institute. That’s not good enough, DeSantis says.

“You gotta do property relief,” he repeated towards the end of Monday’s news conference. “If you want to do sales on top of that, I’m all for that, for sure, but this property stuff needs to be addressed.”

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.