The proposal by Carlos Lacasa would let homeowners and businesses exempt 25 percent of the value of their property from taxes in exchange for a penny increase in the six-cent sales tax.
Lacasa, a Miami attorney and former state legislator, will present his proposal to the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission, of which he is a member.
UNSETTLED ISSUES
The panel meets once every 20 years and on Monday will review a host of property tax proposals to consider putting on the November ballot -- each designed to address issues left unsettled by the Amendment 1 property tax cut plan approved by voters on Jan. 29.
Lacasa's proposal is aimed at eliminating the inequities between homeowners, who benefit most from the passage of the amendment, and businesses and owners of second homes and investment property owners, who will shoulder an increasingly large share of the tax burden because of it.
He wants all property owners to get a super-exemption of 25 percent off the value of their property, phased in over two years with the first year allowing a tax break of 12.5 percent. Homeowners would keep their Save Our Homes benefits, keep their portability and keep the first $25,000 homestead exemption.
The 10 percent limit on the growth in tax assessments for businesses and non-homestead property, which was approved through Amendment 1, would be lowered to 5 percent under Lacasa's plan, ''a more meaningful cap,'' he said.
According to estimates by House economists, the average savings to all property owners would be about 4.5 percent in the first year when it is phased in, 12.6 percent in the second year, and 13.2 percent in the third year.
Local governments and school districts throughout the state would get a $2.1 billion surplus in the first year because the full one-cent tax hike takes effect. But when the full 25 percent super-exemption takes hold in the second year, local governments and schools would face a $209 million reduction in tax revenues, and a $433 million reduction in the third year.
That amounts to a net surplus over three years but, under the plan, the added penny sales tax disappears after the third year unless it is reenacted by the Legislature. If lawmakers refuse to reenact the penny tax, the cost of the property tax cuts to local government and school districts rises to $5.1 billion by 2011.
''I have no idea what my colleagues (on the panel) will think of this,'' Lacasa said Sunday. ``But I hope they support it because it is the most serious and comprehensive proposal we've got.''
A plan by former Senate President John McKay to eliminate a third of all property taxes, those that pay for schools, and replace it by eliminating exemptions on the sales tax, is perceived as a services tax, Lacasa said, and ''doesn't have broad support'' on the commission.
Other proposals to come before the commission's Finance and Tax Committee during the Monday meeting include: caps on government spending like the controversial ones imposed in Colorado; rewriting the way property appraisers classify waterfront property; giving snowbirds homestead exemptions; and shifting the burden of proof in property tax disputes away from the taxpayer to the property appraiser.
`MORE PRESSURE'
How these issues fare Monday will dramatically shape the debate on taxes in the weeks ahead.
''If we don't do something meaningful like this, then there's going to be more pressure on the Legislature to continue to try and they've shown they're very bad at it,'' Lacasa said.
He also noted that attempts to cut property taxes through citizen petition drives, such as the plan to tax all property at 1.35 percent of its taxable value, can't address all the reforms needed because they are restricted to 75 words on the ballot.
The 1.35 percent plan would also cut local government revenue deeper than Lacasa's plan, eliminating about $8 billion in tax revenue in its first year. It gives voters an average 26 percent tax cut and offers government no way to offset the lost revenue.
