The elimination of Florida’s homestead property tax will lead to statewide deterioration

The elimination of Florida’s homestead property tax will lead to statewide deterioration

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The Florida Legislature convened for a special session this week and passed Gov. Ron DeSantis proposal to put a gradual elimination of homestead property taxes on November’s ballot. As a legislator who represents a vibrant, diverse community in South Florida, I could not in good conscience support this measure.  I voted “no”  because the math does not add up and Floridians deserve honesty, not political theater.

The resolution would raise the homestead exemption from $50,000 to $150,000 in 2027 and to $250,000 in 2028, with a stated path toward full elimination of homestead property taxes. Florida is already one of nine states in the United States without an income tax.

Florida is already one of nine states in the United States without an income tax.

On the surface, getting rid of such property taxes might appeal to Floridians across the political spectrum. We all deserve affordability and the ability to make ends meet without taking on crushing debt or working multiple jobs just to stay afloat. Like Americans across the country, the people in Florida face an affordability crisis as the cost of groceries, housing, healthcare, gas and other everyday expenses continues to skyrocket.

Every single person in the communities I serve is feeling the pressure of rising costs, and I take that seriously. But this resolution does not solve that problem — it shifts it. It takes the financial burden off property owners and quietly drops it on the backs of renters and the most vulnerable communities we serve.

Republicans across the country, including many here in Florida, have talked for so long about lowering taxes or eliminating taxes that they seem to have forgotten that taxes pay for things that people need and that getting rid of taxes in such a haphazard way will cause pain for individuals and local governments across the state.


Under this measure, local governments across the state, including those in Miami-Dade County and across South Florida, stand to lose billions in revenue. That revenue pays for police and fire protection, public health services, infrastructure and the community programs that working families count on. The state’s constitutional prohibition on cutting first responder funding changes the basic fiscal reality: When you eliminate a tax base, someone else pays. And there’s no solution in place to make up for this massive loss and the impact it will have on communities and residents’ daily lives.

My district is home to hardworking families, seniors on fixed incomes, renters who will never see a dime of this tax break and small business owners who are already navigating an extremely difficult economic climate. They are not asking for a constitutional amendment that most benefits the wealthiest homeowners. They are asking for real, targeted relief that addresses the actual affordability crisis without gutting the services that keep our communities safe and functioning.

Property tax reform that is sustainable, equitable and helps the Floridians who need it most would get my support, but that’s not what this plan is.

When you eliminate a tax base, someone else pays.

We can expect Gov. DeSantis and his allies to paint this resolution as “cost saving,” but if the state’s voters approve the constitutional amendment in November,  the shift in tax burdens will hit many Floridians’ pocketbooks hard.

Florida is already navigating the aftermath of devastating hurricane seasons the past few years, with communities still rebuilding and local governments stretched thin. To introduce a structural revenue shock of this magnitude, one that disproportionately benefits high-value homeowners in wealthier zip codes isn’t just bad policy but a choice about whose recovery matters.

Just like the hype that surrounded Donald Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill last year, we have seen this playbook before: A headline-grabbing tax cut gets framed as relief for everyday families while the fine print tells a different story. The president, for example has focused on the law’s provision on allowing certain tax filers who get paid tips to not pay taxes on them, but the law overwhelmingly benefits the country’s wealthiest Americans.

 

Similarly, the exemption headed to Florida’s ballot helps those with the highest-value homes while, say, a senior renting a modest apartment would see nothing. A working family leasing a home would see nothing as the county budget that funds their children’s after-school programs, their neighborhood’s road repairs and their emergency services absorbs the blow.

Extreme anti-tax strategies like this are anything but “fiscally responsible.” The hidden cost is paid in crumbling roads, understaffed fire stations and shuttered public libraries — the very infrastructure that holds communities together. When revenue is deliberately starved from local governments, it isn’t abstract bureaucracies that suffer. It is the elderly neighbor who can no longer afford the ambulance response time that doubled, the child whose school lost its reading specialist and the small business owner whose street floods every rainy afternoon because the drainage system went unrepaired for a decade. A community that guts its own foundations doesn’t liberate its people — it auctions off their shared future to the highest bidder, leaving everyone else to pay the real price.

Fla. Sen. Shevrin Jones

Florida state Sen. Shevrin Jones, the first openly LGBTQ+ member of the Florida Senate, represents District 34, which includes communities in the northern portion of Miami-Dade County. 

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