Tax Increases? Talk About Bad Timing

I wanted to make sure you had seen this article by my colleague Will Van Sant that ran in Saturday morning's newspaper. It reported that the taxable value of property in the Tampa Bay area continues to go up -- which means we would have another round of local tax increases, unless the Legislature or local governments do something to stop it.

Here are some preliminary numbers: the tax roll is up 13.7 percent in Hernando County, 11 percent in Hillsborough and 5.8 percent in Pinellas. (Numbers for Pasco aren't ready yet.)

Here's what this means: If local governments simply kept their current tax rates the same, then their overall tax collections would go up by those full percentages -- quite a tax increase.

Two other things could happen. The locals could cut tax rates to offset some or all of the higher property values. Or the Legislature, which will meet in a special session on June 12, could impose some kind of drastic tax cut from above.

Fast-rising property values have been behind the fast-growing budgets of local government in recent years. That's why a lot of people like the idea of an annual cap on the rate of growth of local tax collections, based on inflation and how much new growth there is on the tax rolls. Such a cap was proposed in the spring session of the Legislature, but no deal was reached -- it will be interesting to see if the idea comes back in the June special session.

By the way, check out the reader comments at the end of Van Sant's article. There's a lot of skepticism among readers as to how county property appraisers are coming up with higher property values in the first place, given depressed market conditions. This has me curious, too -- I want to learn more about what's driving the higher tax rolls.