Last gasp for the tax swap

Officially, House Speaker Marco Rubio's "tax swap" was eliminated from consideration last week (though it was dead long before that). But Rep. Julio Robaina gave it one more shot moments ago on the House floor. The Miami Republican offered an amendment to increase the statewide sales tax by 2 cents in order to eliminate property taxes for schools.

The motion was met with near silence, with Rubio and others abandoning the fight in order to pass a plan for the Jan. 29 presidential primary ballot.

"Its time will come," Robaina said before withdrawing the amendment.

Comments

To the members of the Florida Senate:

You are still the wiser chamber and better at doing the political.

The House's dog won't hunt.

Harvill, Your comment is boring and not factual!!

The blogger will have to retract the headline for this one, because this vampire will not die. It will come back in March. Rubio just can't wait to try to give H U G E taxcuts to the very very very wealthy. He doesn't mind increasing taxes to do it. He isn't worried that the current tax base is much more predictable and stable than a purely sales tax based system. This is especially true when so many purchases are moving to the internet where no one is paying their sales tax (even though they are supposed to do so).

Great plan. Actually only 1% is needed to eliminate school portion for just FL Resident homeowners.

2% is a harder sell than 1% for just FL residents.

Although businesses would like the 2%, but businesses do not vote.

But business owners do vote! And most of them are small Mom-and-Pops.

[terminator]

Go Marco. Go Julio. Go House!
Is the Senate still coming back Thursday?
I suspect Pruitt and company are wringing their hands back at the ranch wondering what in the heck they're going to do now?
The one penny sales tax swap will hunt eventually.
At least Donna will earn some of her money!

Eat your words Harvill. Rubio is showing real leadership. He's doing the peoples work while the governor is off traveling and playing.

Why was a 2.5 cent sales tax increase enough to swap for no property taxes when Rubio proposed it and now a 2 cent sales tax increase only swaps for the school board portion?

His swap only eliminated taxes on homestead properties

Best proposal:

Eliminate the school portion from property taxes for 1% more in sales tax. That would save homeowners about 40%. It's a good compromise that won't completely eliminate property taxes but would bring much needed relief to FL homeowners.

Roll back taxes 2 years & cap them from local government overspending would then help businesses & homeowners.

Problem solved & this plan would get overwhelming support by the people.

only 1% needed to swap out all school property tax for homesteaded properties