Why Rep. Ryan Chamberlin wants to eliminate and replace Florida's property taxes

A Republican state representative wants to shake up Florida's entire property tax system by eliminating and replacing it.

The effort to cut or eliminate property taxes in the state has been a top priority for Gov. Ron DeSantis, but so far, there's no official plan.

Supporters believe cutting these taxes will help with affordability. WUSF's Douglas Soule previously reported how critics warn it would affect local services and require fees to be raised elsewhere.

Lawmakers have wanted to put a measure on the November ballot to reduce property taxes. But during the session, the Florida House passed a sweeping plan that the Senate did not support.

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The session ended without a budget, so lawmakers will have to come back to hash it out. The budget has to be approved by July 1 to avoid a partial government shutdown.

Since the likelihood that the two chambers will pass a constitutional amendment this year is on shaky ground, state Rep. Ryan Chamberlin (R-Marion County) has a backup plan.

He wants to launch a campaign to collect enough signatures on a petition that would eliminate all property taxes on all properties in Florida. If he gets enough signatures, it could be on the ballot in 2028.

On "The Florida Roundup," Chamberlin said he'd have a replacement plan following elimination, why he doesn't support the current system and more.

The interview below was edited for clarity and brevity.

Do you support doing away with all property taxes in Florida?

Absolutely. I support doing away with the system of property taxes that also involves a replacement plan, which I have unveiled this past year. At least a first draft of one.

I do believe that we can eliminate and replace. I'm a believer the government should not have a lien on anybody's property.

Would you include eliminating property taxes for school districts?

I would propose eliminating — eventually — all property taxes.

Initially, homestead is where it seems like we're going to start with.

But again, if I believe that the government having a lien on a personal home property is wrong, I also don't like the fact that we would have liens in school districts or liens on properties in any district.

I think with a $1.8 trillion economy, we can figure out a better way to generate the revenue to absolutely not cut any funding when it comes to fire departments, our safety, our schools.

We don't need to cut. We just need to figure out a different way to generate that revenue.

Eliminate the property taxes — all property taxes on all property: Residential vacation homes, commercial condominiums, school taxes, public safety taxes, all taxes, that's eventually what you'd like to get to. Is that accurate?

Absolutely.

I think we should come to a place in this state — be the first state in the United States where people can actually own their property rather than rent it from the government.

I don't like the current system. I think it was designed in a time when our state was a different size, a different place. I wouldn't have agreed with it back then either, but it's gotten out of control.

How would you propose local governments and school districts, police and fire pay for existing services and personnel?

I think there's several ways we can do it. I have presented a few ways based on transactions. One, we would put a one-time sales fee on property.

Rather than taxing people $3,000 to $5,000 a year for the rest of their lives on one purchase, we could figure out a reasonable fee where they buy their property to put some money into the system.

I know we have 140-plus million travelers in and out of the state of Florida. They're not helping cover any of the safety fees that are on the backs of the homeowners paying for the whole state right now.

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Yet, when they come here, if they're in trouble, our police take care of them, our fire takes care of them. And there's nothing that's being contributed to relieve the burden of property taxes when it comes to that.

[If] someone says, "Ryan, are you open to raising the sales tax at all?" If I have to make a choice between property tax and raising the sales tax one cent or two cents.

Every one cent in the state of Florida generates billions of dollars. We can get to the number fairly rapidly if we look at these creative transactional ways.

One reason why I would lean toward a sales tax increase if we had to — I don't know that we have to.

But if we had to is because again, the 140 million people that travel to our state, then they're spending so much of that money there, it's actually relieving if we move it off the backs of the homeowners.

It would be one of the biggest tax cuts for the citizens of Florida in history. So I think we look at the numbers and figure it out.

Would you require an apartment owner to pass along the property tax savings if they're eliminated to the renters?

I don't know that I would require it. I think the free market would take care of that.

They would naturally be able to lower rent for competition sake. And I think there's some benefits there. Could we incentivize that?

That's all up for discussion, and that's my point here. There's a better way to generate this revenue than just the ever-increasing.

Would you support keeping any increase in sales taxes or the transaction tax, perhaps as a replacement strategy, staying local, or having to go through the legislature in Tallahassee and then allocate it to local governments?

There's a lot of different ideas circulating on that. The way we distribute the revenue with the school system — a per capita basis — that seems to make sense, because it seems to just have some logic to it.

But I'm open to looking at that, working with the counties. They're all nervous about losing revenue without a replacement strategy.

And so my belief is if we're going to get serious about property tax overhaul, we're going to have to bring in a revenue replacement strategy at some point, if we want to do it all.

How would you propose to handle the billions of dollars in bonds that have been issued by local governments for all kinds of services that are backed by property taxes?

I believe as a state, we potentially have enough money in reserves and/or other ways to generate to make sure that's taken care of. There could be a phasing-out process here.

I think that even when this makes it on the ballot, which I believe it will ultimately at some point make it there, you still have to bring it back to the legislature for implementation. It doesn't happen overnight.

Everybody has this idea that it's all going away in the next six months or the next year. There's a multi-year process.

I predict it would take six to eight years to unwind from the system and to graft in the new one. And so I'm all for doing this in a very responsible way.

You can listen to the full interview in the media player above. This story was compiled from interviews conducted by Tom Hudson for "The Florida Roundup."

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