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It appears that the Florida Legislature will make another attempt to provide property tax relief in a special session next month. Much of their effort will reportedly revolve around proposals to roll back property taxes, provide relief for non-homesteaded residents and businesses, increase and allow portability of homestead exemptions and make up for the resulting shortfalls with other revenue sources such as increased sales taxes. In preparation for evaluating their efforts your Martin County Taxpayers Association thought it might be interesting to see where the majority of our current property tax revenues come from. These dollars pay for all of the property tax funded activities of our County and City Governments, Schools, South Florida Water Management and all the other entities listed on your property tax bill.

We asked the Martin County Property Appraiser’s office to provide data on the top commercial taxpayers as well as the residential communities that have the highest assessments. Most of the information received was as we expected. However, we found the magnitude of the total paid by these top taxpayers surprising.

Top Commercial Taxpayers:

Assessed Property Value Estimated Taxes

1. Florida Power and Light $ 1,274,047,131 $ 20,313,272

2. Treasure Coast Mall + 81,678,535 1,318,349

near-by Commercial Properties 246,790,130 3,983,365

$ 327,468,666 $ 5,301,704

3. Indiantown Cogeneration $ 292,431,592 $ 4,652,791

4. Bell South $ 43,966,000 $ 923,614

5. Sands Industrial $ 42,487,940 $ 783,725

Top Community Taxpayers:

1. Jupiter Island $ 1,868,020,563 $ 29,479,852

2. Sailfish Point $ 845,288,800 $ 11,325,513

3. Sewall’s Point $ 679,087,509 $ 10,065,969

Obviously, any significant rollback in these taxes will create a sizable void in the County’s budgets that will have to be filled by other funds.

Some make the case that affluent part time residents should be paying more, but how much preferential treatment should lawmakers give homesteaders, and where and how do they draw the line on “wealth”? Also, at what point is an extremely progressive property tax rate going to “kill the golden goose” as affluent residents flee to the Carolinas and other more affordable locations.

Others want businesses and industry to pick up an even larger portion of the bill. However, with utilities, retailers and service sector businesses the result is very similar to the proposed alternative of an increased sales tax. Their increased costs will be passed on directly to local consumers. As to industry, our county’s largest employers are already our governments, schools and subsidized medical facilities. There is little industry left to tax, and higher taxes are certainly not an incentive for new companies to locate here.

Still others want sales taxes increased to 8.5% or more and even do away with property taxes altogether.

We certainly do not envy the Senators and Representatives charged with trying to achieve these very necessary tax reforms. Our hope is that whatever results from their legislation will require that our County’s Governments and Schools seriously attack the real problem. To paraphrase President Clinton’s 1990 admonition to his election team on the economy: “it’s the spending stupid”.

The total budgeted expenditures for all Martin county governments and schools in 2006 were approximately $750,000,000.00 or over $5,200.00 for every man woman and child in the County. Revenues that have been increasing exponentially need to be reduced, forcing a needed reduction in expenditures. Citizens must learn that there is a limit to the level of services we demand and we must all insist that we get good value for every dollar our governments spend.