A Tax Cut-- Or a Tax Shift?

Question: What happens when you enact unaffordable tax cuts?
Answer: Some other tax (or fee) goes up to replace some, or all, of the lost revenue.

As the Marco Island Sun-Times documents, this process is already underway in some Florida localities, even though the state legislature has not yet voted to approve property tax cuts:

With a proposed property tax reform plan from state legislators likely to reduce spending at the local level, city officials are preparing ways to generate additional revenue. One of those options could be a public service tax on electricity, liquefied petroleum gas, manufactured gas and metered natural gas, City Manager Bill Moss said in a May 29 city council memo.

This shouldn't surprise us. There are very real indicators that locals simply can't afford to just drop their spending by the amount of lost property taxes.

This isn't news-- but it should serve as a reminder that there's no free lunch in Florida tax reform. If cuts will be enacted, cuts will ultimately have to be paid for.