During a press conference yesterday, Gov. Ron DeSantis sharply criticized the Florida House’s approach to reducing or eliminating property taxes. He also explained why his team hasn’t finalized the amendment language yet.
His Vision: DeSantis laid out his goal for Florida homeowners. “I’ve said Florida resident, you have a home, you’re a homesteaded. You should own it. You shouldn’t be taxed. That shouldn’t be an ATM for the local government. That’s the vision that we want to see.”
- The proposed amendment would appear on the November 2026 ballot.
Why No Plan From DeSantis?
When asked about the timeline, DeSantis said, “This is going to be on the ballot in November of 2026. So that’s over a year away. We’re working very hard with folks. You got to get the language right. You got to get the numbers, you got to get all that.”
He added, “It doesn’t need to be produced today, and it won’t be produced today because we want to do it right.”
- Dig Deeper: The governor’s tone differed from what he said four weeks ago when he told reporters that he had the language for this plan.
“I’m not just doing this to just go around and crow about property tax,” said DeSantis. “I want to see something big enacted. That’s the whole goal. So we’re doing that. We’ve got numbers, we’ve got language. We’re doing that. So that will happen. You guys will see that in due time.”
On Wednesday, DeSantis said a major concern was preventing unintended consequences.
- “People say, yeah, I love it, but then are you going to have half of New York City move to Florida because to try to, well, no, we don’t really want that, right?” DeSantis noted. “We want to benefit our current residents. We’re not trying to incentivize people to move and take advantage of this. So you got to structure it in a way that is not going to invite something that I think a lot of our folks probably aren’t going to be too happy about.”
DEI Element? The governor also wants to ensure that remaining property tax revenue from non-homesteaded residential and commercial properties is spent wisely. “That should only go to education and first responders and law enforcement. It shouldn’t go to DEI and these other things,” DeSantis stated.
Hating on the Florida House
DeSantis didn’t mince words about the Florida House’s proposals. “In the Florida House, they put out a bunch of proposals, they’re all milk toast. There’s not one proposal that people would get excited about, not one. So they’re total half measures, which is not what people are asking for. People want to be bold.”
The governor was firm about putting a single proposal before voters. “If anybody tells you that it’s better to just put five proposals on the ballot, I mean, look, I disagree with it substantively obviously, because I want to see something done,” he said.
- He warned that multiple amendments would doom the effort: “That is a way you kill any type of getting property tax reform, because different voters are going to read different things and none of ‘em are going to end up getting 60%.”
DeSantis expressed frustration with what he sees as political gamesmanship. “When I see people, politicians rolling out, oh, we’re going to put five proposals on, it offends me because they think you’re stupid enough for them to tell you, oh no, we’re supportive of you. We put stuff on the ballot. We tried.”
The governor gave no deadline for submitting his proposal.