Florida House speaker wants to lower the state sales tax, saving consumers billions

Florida’s House speaker said his chamber will recommend cutting the state’s sales tax from 6% to 5.25%, resulting in “the largest state tax cut in the history of Florida.”

In a surprise announcement Wednesday, Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, said cutting the state sales tax will save Floridians nearly $5 billion each year.

“This will not be a temporary measure, a stunt or a tax holiday,” Perez told lawmakers. “This will be a permanent, recurring tax reduction.”

Perez said it was a move to make the state more affordable.

“We often talk about how to improve affordability in Florida, and our strategies usually involve spending money on more government programs,” Perez said. “But this year, we’ll try a novel concept and make Florida more affordable by giving the people of Florida their own money.”

Such a move would have to be agreed to by the full House and Senate by the time this year’s session is scheduled to end May 2.

Cutting sales taxes, which are levied by the state and local governments, would have a direct effect on all Floridians. Florida’s taxes are considered the most regressive in the nation, meaning the lowest-income households pay the greatest proportion of their income in state and local taxes, according to the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, said that Democrats have long called sales taxes “regressive,” but said she wanted to see what programs would be cut to make up for the loss of revenue.

“It’s an interesting concept, but $5 billion is real money, and we have real programs that need funding,” Driskell said.

Sadaf Knight, the CEO of the left-leaning think tank Florida Policy Institute, called the idea “real reform,” while also saying that Floridians “deserve good quality public services.”

It’s not clear yet how state lawmakers plan to afford such a massive cut. House committees so far have proposed eliminating thousands of vacant positions across state government, saving hundreds of millions of dollars, and trimming various other programs.

Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola, told colleagues Wednesday that health care spending would be 2.1%, or about $1 billion, smaller than the previous year’s.

“We have to stop the spending,” Andrade said.

Perez said Wednesday that “state government has a spending problem,” and that the House would propose a budget that was smaller than the prior year’s budget for the first time since the Great Recession.

“Our budget will not only be lower than the governor’s proposed budget, it will also be lower than the budget passed by the Legislature last term,” Perez said.

The announcement came as Gov. Ron DeSantis has proposed eliminating property taxes, an idea that lawmakers haven’t yet endorsed. DeSantis is also proposing the usual slate of sales tax holidays, including one that would make guns and ammunition tax-free for six weeks.

Perez said he supported reducing property taxes, but the Legislature doesn’t have the power to do it. They can place an amendment to the state constitution that would have to be approved by 60% of voters. DeSantis said it would be on the ballot in 2026.

“I don’t want property taxes,” Perez told reporters. “It’s something that we don’t have the power to change through the legislative process solely.”

Perez also took a dig at “special interests” who will “say the sky is falling” because of the smaller budget.

“The beneficiaries of the state budget are the endless stream of lobbyists and vendors who always have some shiny new thing for the state to buy that won’t actually improve the lives of Floridians,” Perez said.

This story was originally published March 26, 2025 at 4:20 PM.