Daniel Perez does have big ideas: A $5B annual sales tax cut

Amid Florida’s affordability crisis, the Republican leader of the Florida House has proposed a significant cut in taxes charged by the state, but it may come with an expensive price tag that could force legislators to enact deep spending cuts.

Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez announced Wednesday a plan to reduce the state sales tax rate from 6% to 5.25%, which, if successful, would save taxpayers’ nearly $5 billion annually and put the Sunshine State on the map for being the only state in the nation to permanently reduce its sales tax.

“This will not be a temporary measure; a stunt or a tax holiday. This will be a permanent, recurring tax reduction,” Perez said during the opening moments of the House session for the day.

The details of the proposal were not made publicly available at press time but Perez said embedded in the proposal was a reduction for business rent taxes. Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed eliminating the tax in his recommended budget for the upcoming year. DeSantis also. has proposed eliminating property taxes but that would require voters to approve a change to the state constitution.

House Democratic leader Fentrice Driskell, meanwhile, told reporters they did not have the details on Perez’s proposal either.

But she said that  Perez and DeSantis who has proposed eliminating property taxes are “Both jockeying for position with the voters but we don’t have the information to know ‘is this a good thing.’”

Katherine Betta, a spokesperson for Senate President Ben Albritton, said in a statement: “President Albritton has tremendous respect for the Speaker and looks forward to partnering with the House on a significant, broad-based tax relief package to make sure Florida families can keep more of the money they earn.”

The announcement comes as the House and Senate roll out early iterations of spending plans for state fiscal year 2025-2026.  Perez said the House’s proposed budget would be “historic.”

Already, a House health care budget subcommittee recommended this week eliminating a 10-year, $500-million health innovation fund from the budget. It was a priority for former Senate President Kathleen Passidomo and an integral component of her Live Healthy Initiative.

How low can you go?

“Our budget will not only be lower than the governor’s proposed budget, it will also be lower than the budget passed by the Legislature last term. For the first time since the Great Recession, we will roll out a budget that actually spends less money than we did in the prior fiscal year,” Perez said.

Perez predicted special interests “will say the sky is falling and the world is ending. But it won’t and it’s not. They have lost sight of the difference between our state’s needs and their wants.”

The initial budget proposals from the House have all been preceded by GOP budget leaders maintaining that the growth in state spending is “not sustainable.”

Overrides

But despite the calls for austerity, the House also on Wednesday voted to restore funding to a handful of projects that Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed last year.

The House overwhelmingly voted to restore $4.74 million in budget vetoes for local projects, which Perez said garnered the headlines but are “irrelevant and incidental to the true growth of the budget.”

The House voted to reinstate:

• $140,000 for a program aimed at preventing homelessness for senior veterans;
• $1 million the Department of Corrections uses for timesheet and payroll data management;
• $1.1 million to make improvements to the Town of Baldwin’s water and sewer systems; and 
• $2.5 million for a program to remove 29,106 pounds of nitrogen per year from Rockledge’s water supply. 

Perez announced “combined workgroups” before the start of the 2025 session and tasked them with identifying potential vetoes DeSantis made in the state fiscal year 2024-25 budget for the House to override. 

For the overrides to be successful, the Senate must follow suit. The veto process starts in the House because the budget, contained in HB 5001, originated in the House.

Florida Phoenix reporter Jay Waagmeester contributed to this story.