'Portability' spurs tax fight in Tampa

TAMPA — Tony Beeny is doing what lots of Floridians are doing these days — challenging his property tax bill.

Beeny thinks Hillsborough County Property Appraiser Rob Turner got the market value wrong on a Tampa Palms home he sold in May. The sale price and what Turner's office says the home is worth are more than $100,000 apart.

But Beeny's petition is unlike the nearly 15,000 other appeals filed in Hillsborough this year: He wants the market value of his old house — and the tax bill — increased.

Beeny is looking to take full advantage of portability, a central plank of the Amendment 1 property tax overhaul approved by voters in January. It allows homeowners to take their tax cap savings under the Save Our Homes program from one home to another. (story here)

*

Comments

Too bad Beeny doesn't live in Pinellas. He and Property Appraiser Jim Smith could have gotten along famously.

It's time to do what California did with Proposition 13 in 1978 that revolutionalized property taxes & home ownership. If we go with something similiar, everyone would pay 1% of assessed value of their home. No Save Our Home, no exemption, no portability, just simplicity.
Most people will pay much less in property taxes too.

IT'S NOT BEENY'S FAULT, THE COUNTY APPRAISER JUST NEED TO GET THE VALUE RIGHT.

MANY TIMES ASSESSED VALUE "SHOULD BE AROUND" 85% OF SALES PRICE

[Susan S]

8:22 PM,
My sister lives in California. She hates Prop 13 and is appalled by its unfairness. She and her husband pay over $6000 a year in taxes (on a two-bedroom, 1-bath, 1500 square-foot house), and their neighbors pay only $600 because they were grandfathered in under Prop 13.

Prop 13 and its ilk have turned every state where enacted into ghettos. This is typical conservative Reagan thinking. Cut taxes and create the illusion of prosperity. Nothing gets invested in services or infrastructure and eventually, and eventually the whole place goes to crap.

Most Californians love Prop 13.

Florida needs a prop 13 too.

[Betty]

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Betty

http://www.my-foreclosures.info