Tax forum set for Wednesday

By Cindy Lane
sun staff writer

HOLMES BEACH – Area business owners and homeowners will meet Wednesday night to discuss ideas to reform the state’s property tax system.

The Anna Maria Island-based Coalition Against Runaway Taxation (CART) and the Longboat Key-based Homeowners Against Runaway Taxation (HART) will report on their coalition-building project and discuss possible solutions to their common concern – inequitable taxation.

The inequity is that non-homesteaded property owners – which include business owners represented by CART – pay higher taxes than homesteaded property owners, said Barry Gould of Island Vacation Properties, a CART member.

"Save Our Homes, as good as it created an unintended circumstance," he said. "The challenge is to bring equity to tax bills."

Ignoring the inequity will ultimately create problems even for homesteaded property owners, he claims.

"A lot of people say, ‘Why should I care? I have my exemption,’ " Gould said.

But without tax relief, businesses will close, leaving homeowners with fewer choices for shopping and employment, causing a harmful effect on the economy, he said.

The recent proposal in the state Legislature to eliminate property taxes and substitute an increased state sales tax also is inequitable to non-homesteaded property owners, said Winnie Nelon of HART, whose members include seasonal residents who own second homes in Florida.

"The non-homesteaded residential properties will again be encumbered with the bulk of the property taxes, and because most non-homesteaded owners are seasonal, they have no vote in electing local officials who manage the spending," she said.

"Runaway government spending is the root of the property tax problem," Nelon said. "Until that is controlled, there is really no solution."

The meeting will be at Holmes Beach City Hall, 5701 Marina Drive, on Wednesday, April 4, at 5:30 p.m.