Voters will decide yet another school property-tax plan

It is a total failing by our legislature that included in this bill wasn't a requirement for parents to have to foot a portion of the cost of education of their children actively enrolled in school by a monthly tuition assessment. Such an assessment would further lessen the property tax burden and put it on people who are using the school who may not be property owners and are paying nothing plus it gets them more thoroughly involved in their children's progress and attendance when they have to sit down every month at the dining room table and write that check for each little piglet.

Thank you, thank you and thank you!
You have restored my faith. I never thought that a polititcal body would stand up to lobbiests and do the right thing for the people. I justy hope I can hold on until 2010, that is a lone way off. I doubt that 2010 is soon enough to save Florida from a major Recession. Real estate is not going to move unless assessors suddenly start assessing correctly. By the time 2010 rolls around I will have paid over $57,000 more in school property taxes than my "Homesteaded/Save Our Home" neighbor. I will never get that money back and the unfairness has made me bitter. My frig is bare and I can not work any more hours. I will probably lose my property before your effort kicks in, but it will help the new owners.
Thank you though for your effort!

The problem would be solved by eliminating SOH. Period. Just like that.

Dano wrote:

The problem would be solved by eliminating SOH. Period. Just like that.

Sure..higher taxes will solve all our problems. Just like when I vote myself a raise at work.

How about cutting spending!!

Dano wrote:

The problem would be solved by eliminating SOH. Period. Just like that.

Couldn't agree more...I'm a property owner with SOH (since 1999) and even though technically I would lose money with the loss of SOH, I know it is for the greater good. I don't understand why this is so hard for everyone to grasp. Maybe let the elderly/fixed incomes be grandfathered in so they don't have the carpet yanked out from under them; but for everyone else, SOH should be eliminated! It is way past time for this to happen! SOH is screwing up our state in too many ways to list!!!

Back in the day, K-12 all rode the same bus to the same school each morning. Transportation costs for schools are horrendous. Schools are spread out all over and there are buses for elementary, others for middle school and others for high school (which are running around empty because the kids drive their own cars and the tax payer is paying for paved parking lots for those cars!). This is one way to save money. You have the additional advantage of having older siblings to watch out for younger ones and younger ones tattling on the older ones. LOL

Perfect Example wrote:

Thank you, thank you and thank you!
You have restored my faith. I never thought that a polititcal body would stand up to lobbiests and do the right thing for the people. I justy hope I can hold on until 2010, that is a lone way off. I doubt that 2010 is soon enough to save Florida from a major Recession. Real estate is not going to move unless assessors suddenly start assessing correctly. By the time 2010 rolls around I will have paid over $57,000 more in school property taxes than my "Homesteaded/Save Our Home" neighbor. I will never get that money back and the unfairness has made me bitter. My frig is bare and I can not work any more hours. I will probably lose my property before your effort kicks in, but it will help the new owners.
Thank you though for your effort!

Don't buy a home you cannot afford. If you are going to "lose your property" as you put it, than you couldn't afford it in the first place. It is not complicated. It is economics and being a responsible adult!

are you kidding me the last time the "tax break" passed, it cost me more money. What next? If they cut my property taxes again, I just might go broke. What are these idiots thinking. Soon they will have to create a state income tax bucause after all this tax cutting, eveyone in Tallahassee needs a raise right?

How soon people forget the school class size vote that PASSED several years ago.. If this thing passes, classes will be back up to close to 40 kids in a room. Good luck with passing the FCAT when that happens.. How can a governor that was once the Head of the Department of Education for the state cut so much from Education... It amazes me... All these people who no longer have kids will vote "Yes," because they "already paid for their kids to go through school, why should I pay for someone else's kid" Well YOU DIDN'T PAY FOR YOU KID!!!!! THE COMMUNITY DID!

Why don't the House and Senate pass a state income tax bill and then we can lower property tax.. It's coming, it will just take a person who is brave enough to put it out on the table...

TAX CHURCH PROPERTY!

SOH.........lol......you people are funny.

Just do away with ALL special interest tax waivers, elderly, poor, disabled and institute an across the board service tax.

If you want to talk about being fair and not having to pay for services you don't use.......then have all the elderly pay for their own medicare. All the disabled pay for their own stuff. All the poor pay for their own. Otherwise, your talking out your ass when you say parents should pay for the schools.

Make people with vehicles pay extra, since they're using the roads. And do away with public support for all arts programs. And so on.

Of course, that's all sarcasm, but some of you need to that explained since you probably can't see beyond your own little world.

Tax reform part 2, the "Silver Shaft" and just when we thought that things couldn't be worse.

Oh yaaa, remember back when the politicians promised us that 100% of the lottery proceeds would go to benefit the public education system?
At last check it was approximately 38%. I have yet to see a full, transparent, and complete audit and explanation as to what is being done with the remaining 62% of the lottery proceeds? Another link in the mafia's gold chain. All we need is one more tax reform to benefit the kids and then we'll be 50th out of 50 in per student funding in the U.S..

This world is made up of people who break things and people who fix things. Raising taxes on business in any form is not what Florida needs.

This is definitely a step in the right direction. Kudos to the commission for applying some sense to the matter. Let the hit-pieces start flying from all the special-interests against this measure.

Gabe

Cutting taxes while increasing spending? Do these lawmakers think they're in the federal government?! They don't have the authority to just print new money! Spending must be REDUCED, not INCREASED!

Tanya wrote:

<quoted text>
Don't buy a home you cannot afford. If you are going to "lose your property" as you put it, than you couldn't afford it in the first place. It is not complicated. It is economics and being a responsible adult!

Tanya, I'd like to up side the head ya. The assessment on my home owned by me for 10 years has gone up 254% over the past 5 years. I was supposed to plan on that, OK, your so smart Tanya. Assessing property on the basis of highest and best use is not right, period. Bet your one of those big mouthed Save Our Homer's. Pay your fair share then spout.

Another short term fix. When will we really fix the problem and not make things worse?

We need to increase the sales tax to 9%, make it illegal for the districts to impose assessments or fees, eliminate the property tax and make counties cap the annual budget increase to the CPI. The only was around the cap would be by a general vote of the people. The whole problem is due to runaway spending on projects and social programs.
This way everyone pays into the system.

Perfect Example wrote:

<quoted text>
Tanya, I'd like to up side the head ya. The assessment on my home owned by me for 10 years has gone up 254% over the past 5 years. I was supposed to plan on that, OK, your so smart Tanya. Assessing property on the basis of highest and best use is not right, period. Bet your one of those big mouthed Save Our Homer's. Pay your fair share then spout.

I bought my home in 2003 for 180K. I am being assessed on 240K now. I paid $3200 in prop tax last year. That is what I expected to pay. I thought of buying a much larger home for our family this year, but decided against it because of taxes. I don't really know too much about SOH. According to the web site, I saved $400 from it last year. Whatever.

Dano wrote:

The problem would be solved by eliminating SOH. Period. Just like that.

So you want to see a flood of tens of thusands of Florida's elderly pensioners lose their homes to tax sales and end up totally supported by tax payers in a Medicaid "home", where you smart asses then have to pay for every aspirin, every bandaid, every "Depends", every piece of toilet paper when now they can just barely afford to hang on and live independently ? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Most of you big talkers probably aren't even property owners.