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Uncertainties Of Tax Question Turning Voters Upside Down

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 24, 2008

Taxpayers debating Amendment One in public forums, including responses to a Tribune editorial last week advising voters to reject it, express an astonishing range of justifications for positions both pro and con.

Their debate is more useful than the misleading pamphlets published both by the vote-yes and the vote-no campaigns.

One flier featuring Charlie Crist's picture tells voters the amendment doubles the homestead exemption. Actually, it is far less than a doubling because it exempts school taxes. And it says a tax cut is guaranteed, but there is no guarantee.

A vote-no flier featuring the face of a senior homeowner and his wife says, "We get a raw deal." Actually, longtime homeowners get the best deal under the proposal. What this pamphlet calls a great deal for out-of-state property owners is never explained because giving the details would expose the deception.

The heart of the complex package of changes is the portability of the Save Our Homes tax exemption and the expected lowering of tax revenues for cites and counties, whose boards don't vote to raise millage rates.

Some people who want their taxes cut regardless of the consequences to their town or county are voting yes, which is no surprise. Yet some of them who want an even bigger tax cut are voting no to send a message to the Legislature that they want bigger, or at least smarter, cuts. Still others want deeper cuts but fear this plan is the best they're going to get.

Some are voting yes to try to rein in government spending. Some are voting no because they think government will raise millage rates and end up taxing some people, especially non-homesteaded property, at even higher levels. And still others are voting no because they're afraid firefighters and police officers will be laid off and schools will lose revenue.

Some supporters of the Save Our Homes shelter are voting yes because they like the idea of being able to transfer their tax savings to a different property, no matter how unfair it is to reduce the tax value of a new house based on what the buyer paid for another house years ago. Others who also like the 3 percent annual limit on increases in taxable value are voting no because they realize how wrong it is to give some taxpayers a break that follows them around the state forever.

And in an interesting twist, some opponents of Save Our Homes say they're voting yes in hopes that making the cap portable will force a court to declare the whole program unconstitutional. Still others agree with that line of thought but like Save Our Homes and are voting no because they see the amendment as a sly scheme to kill the tax cap.

Some opponents of the new amendment base their opposition on the reasonable analysis that it will shift more of the tax burden to new and first-time buyers and hurt the economy. Others who agree it will do that are voting yes because they expect passing the amendment will help slow growth. And still others are voting yes in hopes the portability of Save Our Homes will spur growth and home-building.

When the original Save Our Homes amendment went before voters, a large minority left their ballots blank because they either didn't understand it or didn't know how they felt about it.

The new amendment is even more complicated. Our advice is, when in doubt about tinkering with the state constitution, the safest policy is to vote no.

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