DeSantis wants Miami’s billionaires to backfill his property tax cut fantasy | Opinion
The confusing property tax cut plan that Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled this week finally came into crystal clear focus Friday — at least when it comes to Miami.
It’s simple: Miami should get rich people to fill the holes in government finances that would be caused by a plan DeSantis says would slash taxes for as much as 93% for homesteaded properties.
“In places like Miami, you have some of the wealthiest people in the history of humanity buying homes here,” DeSantis said, according to the Sun Sentinel. “They’re paying tax. Why not give your middle class residents a break on their property tax?”
Well, now it all makes sense. The uncertainty over whether DeSantis is proposing a $150,000 tax exemption or a $250,000 exemption or a complete rollback of taxes or a trust fund to help poor counties with no revenue source — none of that matters to the governor because he has a plan. Just tax the rich.
Miami, he noted at a press conference in Davie, has “very, very wealthy people.” That’s true. But do people like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Ken Griffin and Ivanka Trump want to be the ones picking up the slack after government coffers shrink? That seems a little unlikely. They might even have something to say about that.
And wasn’t DeSantis the one who went after New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently, calling Mamdani’s plan to tax second homes nothing short of “a Marxist agenda?”
“Of course, you’re going to want to run from that area,” he said, according to Yahoo News, “and you’re going to want to embrace Florida.”
Really? But now he seems to be saying something rather similar in South Florida. “Why would you want to have all this wealth come in and then just price middle-class people out? I would capitalize … on that wealth by relieving middle class people of a burden so that they can actually afford to live in Miami-Dade like back when it was less expensive.”
It doesn’t look like the Legislature is on board with DeSantis’ plan to tax the rich. Legislation filed this week as part of the tax plan would place a 5% cap on increases to the assessed value on non-homesteaded property, which would include snowbirds’ condo homes, vacation rentals — even the $170 million home Meta founder Zuckerberg purchased in Miami this year.
Taxing the rich is a populist idea, for sure. And certainly the wealthy should pay their fair share. But if it goes forward, let’s make sure DeSantis is the one who has to break it to Zuck, Griffin and Bezos.
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