As you may know our state legislature is about to convene a special session to (allegedly) work on reducing our real estate taxes which have grown RIDICULOUSLY high; beginning since about 2001. I have attended 2 of the Town Hall meetings here where the politicos came and listened to the citizens (AND the Bureaucrats, and Social Welfare representatives who were very well organized and used lots of "scare tactics" with dire warnings of what will happen if the budget were to be cut).
The property values in Florida started to escalate after 2000 and from 2001-2005 basically eveything doubled. Tax revenues had to have increased proportionately. Governments "bugeting" process is basically "spend as much as last year, so we get the same budget. Have you seen the cars our
LISTEN, we had all the social welfare and "quality of life" programs we needed in 2001 and I can't think of single new program that has come along since 2001, that we "can't live without", so why should a roll back to those tax levels impose any hardships.PLEASE CALL YOUR STATE SENATOR...IF YOU ARE A SECOND HOME OWNER, OWN RENTAL OR INVESTMENT PROPERTY...CALL THE SENATOR RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DISTRICT WHERE YOUR PROPERTY IS LOCATED. One of the great injustices is the Senate's "plan". The had actually proposed to toll back the tax rates to 2005-that was the PEAK of the market....doing nothing at all would actually be better, in my opinion, in that the market (and prices) starting going south in 2006....The House of Representatives has a planthat "non voters" are getting less attention that they should. We are 'supposed" to have a REPRESENTATIVE form of government....
Cut Taxes Now Joins Alliance to Establish a Taxpayer Bill of Rights for Florida by 11/08.
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CONTACT: TOM GAITENS-Field Coordinator FreedomWorks.org
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FLORIDA GRASSROOTS CITIZEN GROUPS EXPRESS OUTRAGE AT PROPOSED COMPROMISE TAX LEGISLATION - Call for a Florida
Taxpayer Bill of Rights.
Florida’s largest and best-organized grassroots citizens groups are expressing their outrage at the recently announced tax legislation currently under consideration by the Florida Legislature.
“The proposed legislation does not capture the hopes or wishes of millions of Florida taxpayers who have been promised meaningful and comprehensive tax reform and relief. Our elected Legislative leadership and the Governor have promised taxpayers that taxes would ‘drop like a rock’… the proposed ‘rock’ didn’t drop far,” in the proposed Tax Reform, stated the leaders of over a dozen grassroots organizations.
Lawmakers have decided to ignore the fundamental needs of Floridians in favor of the political needs of local governments who have waged war on real tax relief. Business owners, second homeowners, seasonal residents and recent home buyers have borne the largest burden. They are forgotten and left out as Tallahassee designs a plan to largely benefit homesteaders. Indeed, many homesteaders need tax relief and protection but not at the expense of other Florida Taxpayers.
The grassroots coalition supports actual tax reform and government spending caps. “The legislature needs to scrap their overly complex and politically motivated plan and deliver the following straightforward changes this month:
Failure of the legislature to enact actual reform will result in the advancement of several constitutional amendment initiatives to enact the reforms as outlined – a Florida Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Additionally, the proposed “super homestead” amendment as proposed would be strongly opposed in January 2008.
Representatives of the following organizations have announced their opposition to the current plan and their support for meaningful property tax reform in addition to capping all government spending and revenue: Ax the Tax (Florida); Cut Taxes Now (Pinellas); Lower Hernando County Taxes (Hernando); Fair Government for Levy County (Levy); Boynton Intracoastal Group; Republican Liberty Caucus of Florida; Peace & Prosperity; Broward Activists for Tax Equity and the National Federation of Republican Assemblies/Florida Chapter.
The organizations are contacting their members and Florida taxpayers to urge that contact be made with the Florida Legislature to express taxpayer opposition to the compromise legislation.
David McKalip, MD
John Hallman
John Parsons
Tom Gaitens
Doug Guetzloe
Philip Blumel
Steven J. Burden
My 6/13/07 e-mail to Senator Dennis Jones is copied below...I STRONGLY urge EVERYONE to CALL their SENATOR and maybe the Democratic leadership as well...
Subject: The Proposed "Tallahasee Special" & Will Rogers
please GET SERIOUS, show some LEADERSHIP, and do not just do the "Politically Easy" thing and appease those with Homestead Exemptions Florida's 2nd home owners, FUTURE retirees, commercial property interests and MORE are almost literally being ROBBED and have been since 2001....Remember, our "Winter Guests" only use our roads, sewers, and water for 3-6 mos of the year! They truly are "The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg" for Florida...THEY NEED REPRESENTATION, too! Government SPENDING is out of control, revenues have swollen grossly at the exense of the afore-mentioned and LEADERSHIP is required to correct the past (and future) abuses. I have attached Pin Co Prop Appraiser Jim Smith's info on YOUR home and the history of it's value is shown below, here.... It is fair for you to look at your on home's increase in VALUE (NOT tax bill) as "roughly" parallelling the tax rolls across this state. the Govt's have been unjustly enriched during this time...since 2001 your home's value has increased by 218%....'06 over '05 was 27%, 05' over '04 was 22% and '04 over '03 was 19%... Year Value 2006 735,200 2005 579,300 2004 475,800 2003 399,200 2002 368,000 2001 338,700 2000 265,300 1999 243,900 1998 242,900 RHETORIC is just that...DON'T LISTEN to the nonsense being spewed by the Police and Fire UNIONS.... CONSIDER the retailer who marks up his prices by 100% and THEN has a 50% off sale....THAT'S exactly what's going on....values and revenues have doubled and we're being offered a 9% reduction??? Will Rogers said it best when he said: "Lord, the money we do spend on Government and it's not one bit better than the government we got for one third the money twenty years ago". Sadly, that needs to now be paraphrased to be more like 5 years ago.... PLEASE DO THE RIGHT THING FOR ALL OF THE RESIDENTS AND REPRESENT OUR PROPERTY RIGHTS EQUILATERALLY Best regards, -Don Taylor, P.A. / Broker Salesman, CRS & e-Pro
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