With all the new property tax solutions, is the "super" exemption not as super as advertised?
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By Jim Turner
Posted at 09:06 AM on October 10, 2007
So let me get this straight: our legislators offered a plan they say is the going to rectify the growing inequity of the state's property tax structure created under Save Our Homes.
Yet because a judge said the language they offered voters was a little murky, was too vague about what will happen to Save Our Homes, it appears we're abandoning this miracle cure.
Rather than rewrite the wording for the ballot item of this "super" amendment, lawmakers first said they would appeal the ruling. They were buried, they said, under the need to shave $1.1 billion from the budget.
So at $40,000-a-day they shuttled themselves to Tallahassee last week where they quickly dispatched the cuts with little fight. But before the ink is even scribbled across the bottom of any new budget documents, we hear we're again being offered alternatives that will be the salvation to our property tax problems.
The Save Our Homes portability idea apparently has again be risen from the dead. There are also offers to double the homestead exemption from $25,000 to $50,000 and new discounts for first time home buyers and commercial property owners.
Did I miss something?
If the "super" exemption was such a wonderful idea, one supposedly endorsed by some government approved economists, why the need to bring out the latest in covered wagon medicine show solutions?
Yes, the polls showed that it was going to be very difficult to muster the 60 percent needed to get the amendment approved on Jan. 29, regardless of any confusing ballot language.
And after talking to Martin County Property Appraiser Laurel Kelly, there doesn't seem to be real advantage for anyone who has been in their home for several years - or plans to remain in their current home for at least a decade - to opt out of Save Our Homes.
But if the backers of the "super" exemption are true to their convictions, if they believed the proposal as just and fiscally sound as they had proclaimed when first offering the tax remedy, why not simply rewrite the ballot language?
Was there a reason the language wasn't clear on what would eventually happen to Save Our Homes? Or were they not being honest and the "super" exemption will only have a 5 to 10 year lifespan before property owners - voters - realize the initially savings they were sold was a cheap elixir?
Posted at 09:06 AM on October 10, 2007
So let me get this straight: our legislators offered a plan they say is the going to rectify the growing inequity of the state's property tax structure created under Save Our Homes.
Yet because a judge said the language they offered voters was a little murky, was too vague about what will happen to Save Our Homes, it appears we're abandoning this miracle cure.
Rather than rewrite the wording for the ballot item of this "super" amendment, lawmakers first said they would appeal the ruling. They were buried, they said, under the need to shave $1.1 billion from the budget.
So at $40,000-a-day they shuttled themselves to Tallahassee last week where they quickly dispatched the cuts with little fight. But before the ink is even scribbled across the bottom of any new budget documents, we hear we're again being offered alternatives that will be the salvation to our property tax problems.
The Save Our Homes portability idea apparently has again be risen from the dead. There are also offers to double the homestead exemption from $25,000 to $50,000 and new discounts for first time home buyers and commercial property owners.
Did I miss something?
If the "super" exemption was such a wonderful idea, one supposedly endorsed by some government approved economists, why the need to bring out the latest in covered wagon medicine show solutions?
Yes, the polls showed that it was going to be very difficult to muster the 60 percent needed to get the amendment approved on Jan. 29, regardless of any confusing ballot language.
And after talking to Martin County Property Appraiser Laurel Kelly, there doesn't seem to be real advantage for anyone who has been in their home for several years - or plans to remain in their current home for at least a decade - to opt out of Save Our Homes.
But if the backers of the "super" exemption are true to their convictions, if they believed the proposal as just and fiscally sound as they had proclaimed when first offering the tax remedy, why not simply rewrite the ballot language?
Was there a reason the language wasn't clear on what would eventually happen to Save Our Homes? Or were they not being honest and the "super" exemption will only have a 5 to 10 year lifespan before property owners - voters - realize the initially savings they were sold was a cheap elixir?
