August 16, 2008
The Ocala (FL) Star-Banner on Florida's State-Local Tax Burden
"No need for more of the same"
The coincidental timing of a judge's ruling on the proposed Amendment 5 property tax initiative and state economists' prediction of a $1 billion-plus hole in the state budget has prompted calls for a special legislative session to—once again—deal with property taxes and the budget.
The Florida Chamber of Commerce, for example, requested the special session on Thursday immediately after Circuit Judge John Cooper yanked Amendment 5 off the November ballot because of the muddled wording of its summary. In a letter, the chamber urged Gov. Charlie Crist to call lawmakers to the state capital immediately "to address comprehensive property tax relief." . . .
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Yet, despite all this, we have a new report that says Floridians are among the least-taxed people in the nation.
Last week, the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that has tracked fiscal policy at all levels for more than 70 years, released its annual survey of the tax burden on each state's residents, as measured by the per-person amount of state and local taxes paid.
Florida ranked 47th in the nation with a tax rate of 7.4 percent per person, ahead of only Wyoming, Alaska and Nevada. In dollar figures, that translates to paying a per capita average of $3,441 in taxes on an annual income of $46,293 (which ranked 15th nationally). And we've been falling on the scale; Florida ranked as high as 44th as recently as 2004.
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