"Save Our Homes" and Seniors

In the otherwise controversial world of property tax reform, pretty much anybody can agree on one position: seniors should not be taxed on their homes. But as Martha Brannigan documents in the Miami Herald, a case can be made that Florida's "Save Our Homes" property tax cap is having just that effect. Here's Brannigan's lede:

After Kimrey Newlin retired two years ago, he and his wife moved closer to their grandkids, leaving the $1.2 million Key Biscayne house they had lived in for 27 years for a $545,000 home in the Falls... But the Newlins are paying for the move. Although the new place costs less than half the old one, their property taxes jumped to $9,000 from $6,400.

The reason for this seemingly illogical jump: the biggest single property tax relief measure used in Florida, the "Save Our Homes" cap on the growth of taxable property value, depends primarily on how long you've lived in your house. The people who get the most out of Save Our Homes are those who have lived in the same home for the longest amount of time. And the people who get the least are those who have most recently bought their homes.

When a tax break is so obviously based on a senseless principle, it will inevitably run afoul of more basic tax principles such as "stop taxing seniors out of their homes."

As Brannigan notes, Florida does offer targeted tax relief for senior homeowners-- the extra $25,000 homestead exemption for low-income seniors is a welcome, and well-targeted, break-- but it's clearly not enough for elderly homeowners like the Newlins.

As we've noted before, there's a better alternative: a property tax circuit breaker credit, which would allow Florida policymakers to identify exactly which senior homeowners (and, if they wished to, renters) should be receiving property tax cuts, and then impose strict limits on how high property taxes can go for these fixed-income seniors.

But don't hold your breath waiting for such a reform to emerge from the special session starting tomorrow...