News Briefings - State Taxes

The following article was taken from the 8/25/2008 issue of State & Local Taxes Weekly.

8/25/08 -- Florida court throws out Amendment 5 ballot measure

by Ellen Weiss, Esq. (RIA)

A LEON County Judge has found that the ballot title and summary for Florida's Amendment 5, which has been referred to as the "Florida tax swap" property tax cut amendment, are misleading and, therefore, Amendment 5 must be removed from the November 2008 general election ballot. (Beverly Slough, et al. v. Florida Department of State, Fla. Cir. Ct., 2nd Cir., Dkt. No. 2008–CA-2164, 08/14/2008)

Proposed amendment. Last spring Florida's Taxation Budget and Reform Commission met and proposed several constitutional amendments including Amendment 5, which mandates the permanent elimination of the "required local effort" generated by local school districts from property taxes in order to obtain state funding. The legislature is directed by the amendment to replace this funding with alternative revenue by methods such as repealing certain sales tax exemptions, increasing the sales and use tax rate, or spending reductions in other components of the state budget, but only for 2010–2011. After 2010–2011, there is nothing in the proposed amendment that would prohibit the State from cutting replacement funding to an amount less than was generated before the property tax cut. However, the language of the ballot title and summary mislead the voter by giving the impression that the school funding lost by the cut in property taxes will be fully replaced by the State of Florida on a permanent basis.

The proposed amendment would also reduce the annual maximum increase in real property assessments by local government, for taxes other than school taxes, from 10% to 5%. However, the title of the ballot summary does not give any indication of this provision, although a summary title is required to be broad enough to encompass all the provisions within the amendment. In addition, a voter could conclude that the sentence in the summary concerning the maximum increase, when read within the context of the title and the surrounding text (which refers to a change in the section of the Florida Constitution concerning school tax levies) applies to the provision of the Florida Constitution concerning school funding, rather the provision of the Florida Constitution concerning non-school funding.

Therefore the Court concluded that the ballot title and summary do not fairly inform the voter in clear and unambiguous language of the chief purposes of the amendment; and the language of the title and summary, as written, is misleading. Thus, Amendment 5 must be removed from the November 2008 ballot.

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