Our Taxes going up as entertainment tax revenue goes down
 

With the virus demanding social distancing, all the tourist attractions, theme parks, hotels, etc. will have to decrease capacities and thus sales. With a large portion of Florida's tax revenue coming from: entertainment, hotel, gasoline, alcohol and sales tax; the state will have to turn to residents to offset the shortfall in some form of an Income tax and/or real estate, sales tax increase. Either way, prepare yourself for cost of living increase in the not so distant future!

Yep. Time to grab your ankles and say "Thank you sir, may I have another?"

Classless comment.

Small tip of the iceberg, almost everything and everyone will be impacted throughout the world.

Maybe not
 

Classless to the degree that Animal House was classless. Kevin Bacon went on to bigger roles.

I agree, somethings and some people will never rise above their station in life.:clap2:

But true :)

Real humor is the fact that residents of The Villages think they should be immune to the financial facts from this pandemic or any situation that causes their taxes to increase. Now that’s funny. As I said above, this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Florida will do what it always does - raise taxes on people who live here part time but are not Florida residents and who can't vote here.

It will also call in "favors" from [politics not allowed on this forum] for YUGE bailouts.

Historians will be very unkind to today's politicians on both sides of the stage. Taxes will have to go up at the state and federal level. Our children and grandchildren have a lot of mistakes to pay for.

I agree 100%! All this spending will have to be paid back. Money doesn’t grow on trees, or printing presses in Washington DC or Tallahassee.

Just like the rest of the National Debt, It will never "be paid back". The Fed will simply crank up their printing presses, devalue the Dollar, and hope that inflation doesn't reach double digits (like it did in the 80s).

What??

Please share how the state has gone about doing that in the past??

Tax increase
 

Agree, higher taxes at the Federal and State level are inevitable.

love your comment!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not sure why a followup to a funny comment was reacted to in such a hateful manner, so I did some research on "how to handle a grumpy old man". Turns out, it is called male menopause. Look it up. BTW, Kevin Bacon got his start on a soap opera. The Guiding Light. That, MASH, and the Muppets got me through college.

What taxes? Property?...nope, those do not go to the state. Income?...nope, Florida has no state income tax, and none is coming. Sales and use tax?...possibly, but not likely. Stamp tax?...again, possibly. Florida has no death tax. Florida taxes on stocks and bonds was repealed in 2007. The state will more than likely have to go to the feds if they need to get bailed out. That may result in federal income tax increases, but that's the only thing I see happening, and that would probably be a minor increase. The national debt is what's going to take a big hit.

Homestead property taxes. Same in all states only a little worse here due to permanent homestead Caps the yearly mil rate increases at CPI. Florida average property tax is slightly under national average. All you have to do is move your permanent residency to Florida and part time in your old home state, and stay in Florida at least 6 months a year.

Not exactly. Increases in the assessed value of your homesteaded property are capped, not the millage rate.

Higher Taxes inevitable
 

And necessary. You can't have the common good, e.g., bridges that don't fall down, without taxes. The USA, and Florida in particular, live in a la-la land of extremely low and unsustainable tax levels.

To all of you negative Nellies, I bet you didn't read the state budget when it was passed nor have you talked to your state representatives about spending levels.

Well I actually did back in January. The state has passed a budget with approximately 4.9 billion dollars has a surplus to be held in reserve. Further our Representatives on both sides of the Isles are relatively conservative when it comes to spending money. There is actually a lot of leeway when it comes to spending money such as Road reconstruction building, new projects and many other areas. I bet we'll all be surprised when things open up how fast tourism restarts and taxes are collected.

Are they???

We didn't raise taxes on a 25 trillion dollar national debt, so why is it "inevitable" that they are raised on a 29 trillion debt?

You know that CARES free monies you got? That was just pay it forward money. You’ll be giving it back in some way or another.

Maybe if we had a small state income tax over the years, the state would have been better prepared for growth and not completely beholden to developers. As a 40 year permanent resident, I’ve believed revenue from earned income wage earners would have made a huge difference as the state developed. Remember, income taxes can be defined to impact retirees without substantial income less dramatically.

Lots of moving parts in today's market that weren't so prominent 4+ months ago. Interest rates are more likely to rise, inflation is more likely to occur, loss of revenue is happening (from lost jobs), etc. These all contribute to a much different dynamic. The Fed has tried to respond but they don't have many tools left to deploy at this point. I hope interest rates do not go up, that there is no inflation and that jobs are recovered as quickly as they were lost.

While I "hope" that is true, the more likely scenario is not as optimistic. The issue is what level of federal debt is "appropriate" and more importantly, at what point does that level become unsustainable. That is when revenues have to increase or spending has to decrease. Unless there are other levers to pull (such as cutting spending or raising revenue in other ways), taxes become the one certain tool. Another point, the federal government has mechanisms available to it that states do not have. States do not have the ability to print money so their options for dealing with a revenue shortfall are much more limited.

Lake County
 

I was amazed looking on web at lady lake the villages property taxes with bond. Typical designer home around
$10,000. Same hm in Sumter with bond around $5,000.
Did I read something wrong?

Are they???
 

They are already backing $6.2 trillion in bailout grants and they just added another $.5T last week. Now their talking about bailing out the States, $T? That's just what they are spending; when you add to that all the loss in IRS tax income, it will be closer to $10 trillion.

Smart. New Hampshire has not state income tax. Most of the state's revenue comes from tourism. We should do the same. We should have not income tax, not sales tax and no property tax. Tax restaurant meals attractions and hotel room at a higher level.

Yes, but the lines at Disney will be shorter!

FL doesn't have a state income tax. While New Hampshire doesn't have a state income tax either, and it doesn't have a sales tax, it does have a high property tax rate.

With Disney,Universal not planning on reopening until sometime 2021. Its about time the state diversifies from tourism to industrial.
Along with that downturn I4 corridor is over saturated with hotels and Commercial do not expect a turn around for 1 to 2 years. This downturn is expected all over US with high unemployment, most effected is service sector economy restaurants hotels and finally with airlines cutting capacity by 30%. Not my assumption Wall Street.

I think this refers to the Save Our Homes Act which was passed in 1995. It virtually guarantees that the property tax burden in Florida will fall disproportionately on part timers who are not Florida residents, and this situation will get worse and worse over time as property values rise.

From the Sumter County Property Appraiser web site:
"
Florida Law requires that the just value of all property be determined each year. The Supreme Court of Florida has declared "just value" to be legally synonymous to "full cash value" and "fair market value." The fair market value of your property is the amount for which it could sell on the open market. The property appraiser analyzes these market transactions annually to determine fair market value as of January 1.
"

Every parcel of real property has a just value, an assessed value, and a taxable value. The just value is the property’s market value. The assessed value is the just value minus assessment limitations as per the Save Our Homes Act (see below). The taxable value is the assessed value minus exemptions (Homestead exemption, etc.) and is the value the tax collector uses to calculate the taxes due. The millage rate is applied to the taxable value.

The Save Our Homes Act states that for Florida residents only, the assessed value of a property may not increase more than the Consumer Price Index or 3%, whichever is less, in a given year.

Let's see what happened last year with the Sumter County large property tax rate increase that everyone is mad about. Florida residents in The Villages saw an increase of only a few hundred dollars while non-residents saw increases 2 or 3 times as large. Why is this?

Sumter County instead of doing its job and increasing the market values of properties in The Villages gradually over time every year to conform to reality, instead increased the market values of properties by 15+% in one fell swoop last year. For part time non-residents, the increased market value was reflected immediately in the same increase in assessed value. But Florida residents only saw an increase in their assessed value of about 2%, which was the Consumer Price Index increase last year.

Considering that the Consumer Price Index increases 2% or less per year, assessed value for Florida residents will never catch up with market value, and the property tax burden will continue to be disproportionately shouldered by non-residents.

In my home state, we have something similar to the Homestead exemption, which I consider to be a fair exemption. But in my home state, we don't discriminate against non-residents in perpetuity; similar houses next to each other don't have wildly different assessed values in perpetuity depending on whether the owner is a resident or non-resident.

When a Florida resident goes to sell his house in The Villages, a savvy buyer from out of state will realize that as soon as he takes ownership, the house's assessed value will immediately increase to the market value resulting in a large increase in property taxes even if he later becomes a Florida resident and receives the Homestead exemption, and lower his offer accordingly.

You can bet your amenity fees that you pay your CDD will go up because of all the "distancing" crap...moving benches and tables, putting grid marks in the squares and in the pools, all the yellow tape...easily I bet they go up $10 a month...the reason will be "government mandated policies thru 2021" - after which the fees will never go down....

Weren’t all those folks moving benches and yellow taping currently in the. Budget? Where is excess cost for all this distancing “crap”coming from?

Yes, your amenities fee will go up on the anniversary of when you bought the house by the CPI, as per your deed restrictions.

You obviously did not read the documents that were included in the closing documents of your home.

First, the Amenity Fee is not paid to "your CDD", it is paid to the SLCDD or VCCDD which operate the SLAD and RAD funds respectively.

There are only 3 ways to raise the Amenity Fee on a home, 1) when resold it is adjusted to the current prevailing rate, 2) an annual CPI adjustment, and 3) if the Owners (us the home owners) request, by a vote, additional facilities be provided the additional construction and operating costs can be included in the Amenity budget and result in an increase. That's it, no other way, the AAC's and PWAC's hands are tied; if costs go up they either have to be within the capacity of the CPI adjustment, or cost savings measures enacted, or additional revenue sources created to meet the state mandated balanced budget. The fee cannot be arbitrarily raised as you incorrectly suggest.


If you are actually interested in doing more than complaining about something you obviously know little about the budget review meeting for the Amenity Fund is being held at 2:00 PM on May 5th at the Savannah Rec Center. The meeting is, as it always is, open to the public.

:boom: