News Service of Florida — The House and Senate have passed proposed budgets that are billions of dollars apart, giving them about three weeks to mesh their spending goals and reach an agreement on tax cuts.
While the House has proposed cutting the state’s sales tax rate, the Senate has outlined a less-aggressive proposal that would provide a permanent tax exemption on clothes and shoes costing $75 or less.
Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, said he expects the House and Senate to “end up somewhere in the middle” on the budget. The legislative session is scheduled to end May 2, with the state’s new fiscal year starting July 1.
“We're going in the right direction. We're communicating well. We're working together,” Albritton said after a Senate floor session. “And I have every expectation we'll get the plane landed.”
House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, said he expects lawmakers will reach budget agreements on time, while also saying “we believe in our budget.”
The Senate budget proposal (SB 2500) totals $117.36 billion. The House proposal (HB 5001) has a bottom line of $112.95 billion and is linked to a $5.4 billion tax package (HB 7031) that includes reducing the overall state sales-tax rate from 6% to 5.25%.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has said he wants a one-time property tax break for homesteaded properties and to ask voters in 2026 to pass a constitutional amendment to reduce or eliminate property taxes.
He also has requested eliminating a sales tax on commercial leases and sales-tax “holidays” on school supplies, recreational items, hurricane supplies, ammunition and firearms.
Echoing DeSantis, Rep. Mike Caruso, R-Delray Beach, said no one is “clamoring” for the House sales tax cut, which he said would only provide “minimum immediate relief” while inadvertently benefitting “out-of-state visitors and tourists.”
“I'd rather see the money go to real Floridians, the ones that call this state home,” Caruso said before joining a unanimous vote in support of the House tax proposal.
House Ways & Means Chairman Wyman Duggan, R-Jacksonville, noted that DeSantis didn’t recommend the one-time property tax cut until after the House “rolled out the sales tax relief.”
The House tax package also would reduce the commercial-lease tax from 2% to 1.25%, cut the sales-tax rate on electricity from 4.35% to 3.6%, reduce the tax rate on sales of new mobile homes from 3% to 2.25% and trim the rate on coin-operated amusement machines, such as pinball machines, from 4% to 3.25%.
The Senate proposal also would direct the Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research to study the effects of reducing or eliminating property taxes for homesteaded properties. Albritton has cautioned against making cuts that lawmakers might have to readdress within a couple of years.
Among other things, it would lead to holding a “back-to-school” tax holiday in August; a tax holiday on disaster-preparedness supplies in June; a tax holiday on recreational items in July; a tax holiday on tools around Labor Day; and a “hunting season” tax holiday in September and October on guns, ammo and other hunting supplies.
The estimated $750 million package is expected to go to the Senate Finance and Tax Committee on Tuesday.
The House and Senate budget proposals are below the $117.46 billion budget lawmakers passed last year before it faced DeSantis vetoes, mid-year adjustments and veto overrides.
Senate Appropriations Chairman Ed Hooper, R-Clearwater, described the goal as “right-sizing” state spending.
The House and Senate agree on some issues, such as continuing to spend $80 million next year on the tourist-marketing agency Visit Florida. But they differ in other areas, such as the Senate proposing to spend $750 million for Everglades restoration and the House proposing $357 million.
