Daily Sun’s Definition of “Increased Taxes” Is Amazing
 

The Sumter County commissioners, including three who ran and were elected on the promise of rolling back a 25% increase in property taxes, voted to do just that on Tuesday.

The special meeting to vote on the question was scheduled before the period agreed on to “study the effect of the tax rollback on county property owners” was made necessary because of the bill proposed by State Representative William Hage to cap impact fees charged to developers to a low single-digit percentage. Hage’s proposed law would have been retroactive to January 1, 2021, and if passed would essentially protect the Developer (and all Florida Real estate developers) from the obligation to pay impact fees created by the commissioners concurrent with the rollback of taxes on call Sumter County property owners. To refresh everyone’s memory, Hage is a senior executive of the Developer being paid about $200,000 year. If you see Hage’s proposed law as a huge conflict of interest—and very expensive to county homeowners—you’d be right “on the money”.

But the Developer-owned Villages Daily Sun’s front page headline describing the commissioners passage of the property tax rollback was Commission Pushes Tax Increase Through. The long article in the Wednesday edition describes the increased road and infrastructure impact fees as a “tax increase”. Of course there was no discussion in the article of the fact that county homeowners’ property taxes would have a major reduction from the tax increase passed by the former county commissioners which would have gone into effect next year. To refresh everyone’s memory the former five-member board of county commissioners were all either employees of the Developer or affiliated with contractors working for the Developer.

Draw your own conclusions, but all Sumter County homeowners should be thankful that finally there were three political candidates who followed through on their campaign promises. I know I am.

The other two conflicted commissioners run for re-election in 2022. Keep a eye out for the emergence of candidates challenging their incumbency.

By the way, I predict that both residential and commercial development in the south end of The Villages will continue at the pace desired by the Developer. Somehow they’ll “figure out a way” without the funding of new roads and infrastructure which would have been provided by ALL Sumter County homeowners!

To file an ethics complaint against Hage, go here: http://www.ethics.state.fl.us/Docume...PDF?cp=2020913

How much will this major reduction be???

25%... Sooner Rather Than Later
 

It won’t be a” reduction “. It just won’t be an increase.

The increase in property taxes passed by the former county commissioners was up to 25%. The chances are that amount wouldn’t have been assessed in the first year, but at the planned pace of development the increase probably would have been assessed within a year or two. The rollback passed by the new County commissioners will prevent that large increase from being assessed.

That headline -- "Commission Pushes Tax Increase Through" -- should have read: "Commission Kills Special Fee Discount for Developers"

???? My property taxes actually increased 25% in 2019. I checked some other properties and their property taxes actually increased as well. The increase did in fact happen.

A swing & A miss.


I will pitch this one under-hand so maybe you can get a piece of it.
You stated: property taxes would have a major reduction from the tax increase passed by the former county commissioners


The increase is already in place.
You have defined future reductions as MAJOR.
Please define.


The increase in the impact fee will generate a couple million dollars from a couple thousand new Villages homes. The tax increase generated $50mil. $2mil out of $50mil is extremely minor.


Please explain your major reduction (that TV's sales paper forgot to mention)


:)

Department of Justice needs to take a look at Hage.

Unfortunately, by not going to 100%, the Commission didn't kill the road-impact discount. They just wounded it. The Commission still needs to address the zero impact fee for other county infrastructure.

If the paper was independent and could print what a living breathing editor would approve it might have said that.

However as we all know it prints what the developer approves.

It seems to me that the commissioners did in fact make a compromise to the developer by not putting in 100%.

Deserve It
 

I have to believe that the many alleged abuses going on are well deserved by the residents. Unless I have missed something it has been alleged the Florida Legislature
representing the Village's is being paid significant money by the Organization, which in some circles would be at a minimum a breach of ethics?, Of course you have all of the other alleged influence peddling and threats of law suits if you don't agree with what is going on. In the middle of these questionable deals you have a State Attorney General who has turned a deaf ear to the goings on and a Governor who watched while some of the first people who received vaccine shots were somehow connected to the powers of the Organization and were not, by the rules at the time entitled to get the shots before the serious ill residents and elderly were to receive them. How deep and how wide is this alleged abuse and is there anyway to stop the train at this point? It is and would be
redundant to repeat all of the alleged abuses and potential violations as unless you have
been sleeping under a rock you are familiar with them. :ohdear:

Property taxes are assessed in arrears. The basic procedure is that the county commissioners agree on a County budget for the upcoming year. That budget includes the costs of roads and infrastructure billed to the county by the Developer. Those costs don’t necessarily represent the total cost of the roads and other Items of infrastructure which the Developer has deemed necessary for the planned continued residential and commercial development. In the past there has been little, if any, negotiation between the Developer and the commissioners, who represent the taxpayers. The Developer would propose how much he intended to pay to fund the infrastructure and the balance would come from tax revenues. There weren’t arms length negotiations between the parties resulting in the need or adequacy of the proposed roads and other items, or how much of the cost would be borne by the Developer and the taxpayers. Those numbers were simply proposed by the Developer and approved by “his” County commissioners.

Once that process was complete, the commissioners could arrive at the assessed valuation of the property to be taxed and the millage (rate) required to balance the proposed County budget.

What changed in late 2019 was that the Developer proposed (in private) that the planned roads and infrastructure which he deemed necessary in the south end of The Villages, after the amounts the Developer proposed should be his responsibility, would require increased property tax revenues in an amount up to 25%. That tax increase was approved by the five incumbent county commissioners. All those commissioners were long-term office holders and all had almost certain conflicts of interest between their relationships with the Developer and their responsibility to represent Sumter County residents and property owners.

That process began the campaign by three individuals to run against three of the incumbent commissioners who approved the 25% increase in the November, 2020 primary and general elections. Their fundamental campaign plank was to roll back the tax increase, shift more of the cost back to the Developer, and establish a more arms-length process for establishing a County budget and the means for financing it. The incumbents were defeated by landslide margins in those elections. The other two incumbent commissioners will run for re-election of their staggered terms in the 2022 elections.

Earlier this week the newly-elected commissioners in fact did vote to roll back the previously-approved property tax increase as well as establish several new impact fees to be paid by the Developer. In Tuesday’s front page article The Daily Sun described the new impact fees as “tax increases”, but they made no mention of the 25% tax rollback, which of course is a tax reduction.

So that brings the situation up-to-date. The first portions of the 25% increase would have been assessed to balance the proposed 2022 County budget based on the assessed valuation of taxable property as of the end of 2021. As the result of the rollback the County budget cannot be balanced totally with property tax revenues. There will have to be a combination of other budget reductions and revenue sources identified in coming months.

So, if some taxpayers incurred large increases in their 2021 tax bills, it was not the result of the 25% increase authorized by the county commissioners in late 2019. The authority for those tax increases has been overturned by the new commissioners. Impact Fees payable by the Developer were simultaneously passed. But the impact fees are insufficient by themselves to balance what is likely to be a 2022 County budget. Significant amounts necessary to balance the 2022 budget will have to come from some combination of spending reductions (including roads and infrastructure), further contributions by the Developer, and increased property taxes deemed appropriate by the commissioners.

Public finance and taxation is complicated. There are complicated, arcane laws, regulations, requirement s for public disclosure, hearings, etc. Hopefully, this post simplified things a bit and TOTV readers have gotten this far.

The millage rates on my 2019 and 2020 tax bills say otherwise. Increased from 5.34 in 2018 to 6.7 in 2019 (the 25% increase) and reduced to 6.43 in 2020.

Exactly.
He just makes crap up.
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