Word: florida
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...since they don't pay a state income tax. But they do pay onerous hurricane insurance premiums (a shock being felt in other coastal states as well) that in many cases exceed what a state income tax would levy. What's more, the relatively low salaries and wages in Florida's tourism-driven economy "are hardly commensurate with those of the states we're being compared with today, like California and New York," says Cancela, who heads the Miami-based marketing firm Hispanic USA. That growing gap between incomes and housing prices has all but wiped away Florida's historical...
...Some of Florida's recent fixes have only exacerbated the frustration. In the 1990s the state adopted a "homestead" provision that eventually caps a homeowner's property tax increases at 3% a year. But when the house is sold, the cap no longer applies - creating absurd situations in which neighbors with similar homes pay wildly disparate property taxes. As a result, "there is now absolute consensus that local property taxes are out of control," says Republican state Senator Mike Haridopolos, co-chairman of the Joint Select Committee on Property Tax Reform and Relief...
...That's a big reason I'd have trouble finding a buyer for this house, and why I'd have trouble buying a new one here myself," says Martinez, who now works two jobs in order to pay his tax and insurance bills. Unless Martinez wants to leave South Florida, "I'm essentially in jail in my own house...
...month, with angry voters lighting up their switchboards. The House called for radical cuts of as much as $85 billion over the next five years, the Senate only $15 billion. Crist - whose conservative predecessor, Jeb Bush, was strangely tepid about property tax reform - has pledged to "make living in Florida more affordable" and has called for a $34 billion reduction as well as dramatic increases in the $25,000 exemption from taxable home value that homeowners currently receive...
...Democrats - appear unsympathetic. "This is not so much a cut," says Republican state Senate Majority Leader Daniel Webster, "as it is bringing local governments back to reality." But critics remind the legislators of another reality: because locally levied property taxes pay for the lion's share of education in Florida - and since Florida's dismal schools can't afford new cutbacks - the state will have to find ways to compensate...