Over the past few years, I have been rather critical of the Save Our Homes Amendment as I have historically believed that it placed an unfair burden on the lifeline of Southwest Florida……..second home owners.
It has always seemed very unfair to me that second homeowners, who were down here on a seasonal basis and not using resources like our schools, were being penalized because they didn’t qualify for a homestead exemption. These second homeowners have had very little power to change this inequity as they are not residents, don’t vote and are not represented in Tallahassee.
With the drastic reduction in home values throughout our region, the Homestead Act is now penalizing homesteaders as their valuation reductions are capped at a maximum of 3%. It will be interesting to see if these penalized homesteaders can generate enough of a voice to repeal this unfair act and and bring normalcy to Florida real estate valuations.
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The statement above sounds to me like some kind of ridiculous propaganda to make people believe there property taxes would go down if the save our homes amendment were repealed.It talks about our tax reduction being capped at 3%.”BOLOGNA” There is no reduction,there will never be a reduction of property taxes only unfair increase’s if the save our homes act is repealed.It talks about second home owners in Fl.being unfairly taxed.To repeal the S.O.H.amendment would not help second home owners one bit, it would only make a way for Homesteaders to be unfairly taxed right out of our homes.If the person who wrote this article(which I see no named signed to it ,as I am required to do in order to voice to my opinion here) is worried about the unfair taxing of second home owners then that person should go to Tallahassee and fight for an amendment to protect second home owners.I myself would greatly appreciate it since I am a second home owner,but unfortunately do not have the time to do so myself because I have to spend every waking moment working in order to pay my property taxes.
Absolutely no propaganda here, just stating the fact that the very homesteaders that were supposed to be protected by the Save Our Homes Amendments are now getting a raw deal as their valuation reductions are limited to 3%. The irony is that non-homesteader taxable values can slide with the market.
Now that homesteaders are getting the short end of this stick, I expect Tallahassee to take notice!