TAMPA, Fla. – May 24, 2011 – Florida’s turbulent housing market has had an unintended consequence: Thousands of homeowners don’t pay a dollar in property tax.
No, this isn’t a real estate scam. Blame higher homestead exemptions and falling home prices that essentially removed houses from the tax rolls.
“It’s a basic fundamental in American society and tax policy that everybody should pay something,” said Warren Weathers, chief deputy for the Hillsborough County property appraiser’s office. “Some of these (exemptions) were created for people who barely have anything, and that’s not bad. But there are people ... that have the ability to pay that don’t pay some of their fair share.”
It couldn’t have come at a worse time for budget-conscious municipalities. The exemptions cost the county millions in property tax revenue, and that’s on top of millions lost because of falling values. Hillsborough County saw property taxes owed go from $1.9 billion in 2008 to $1.7 billion in 2009 to $1.5 billion in 2010.
For many of those with tax bills of zero, their properties are valued less by county property appraisers than their qualified homestead exemption, usually $25,000. For properties worth more, a $50,000 exemption brings the tax bill down to almost nothing.
In Hillsborough, more than 7,000 homeowners didn’t pay property taxes last year, according to data from the property appraiser’s office. That’s up from 4,920 in 2008.
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Yea theres more at
http://www.floridarealtors.org/NewsAndEvents/article.cfm?p=3&id=260338
No, this isn’t a real estate scam. Blame higher homestead exemptions and falling home prices that essentially removed houses from the tax rolls.
“It’s a basic fundamental in American society and tax policy that everybody should pay something,” said Warren Weathers, chief deputy for the Hillsborough County property appraiser’s office. “Some of these (exemptions) were created for people who barely have anything, and that’s not bad. But there are people ... that have the ability to pay that don’t pay some of their fair share.”
It couldn’t have come at a worse time for budget-conscious municipalities. The exemptions cost the county millions in property tax revenue, and that’s on top of millions lost because of falling values. Hillsborough County saw property taxes owed go from $1.9 billion in 2008 to $1.7 billion in 2009 to $1.5 billion in 2010.
For many of those with tax bills of zero, their properties are valued less by county property appraisers than their qualified homestead exemption, usually $25,000. For properties worth more, a $50,000 exemption brings the tax bill down to almost nothing.
In Hillsborough, more than 7,000 homeowners didn’t pay property taxes last year, according to data from the property appraiser’s office. That’s up from 4,920 in 2008.
=============================
Yea theres more at
http://www.floridarealtors.org/NewsAndEvents/article.cfm?p=3&id=260338
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