Florida lawmaker wants to eliminate property taxes. Here’s how

MARION COUNTY, Fla. – This week, a Central Florida lawmaker announced his proposal to phase out property taxes statewide — and without leaving schools in the lurch.

The lawmaker, State Rep. Ryan Chamberlin (R-Belleview), shared his plan with News 6 on Thursday, dubbed the “Freedom 1-2-3 Plan.”

“I firmly believe that now is the time to put Florida on the path to eliminating property taxes forever,” Chamberlin said. “Many would argue that this can’t be done — that there’s no way we can do it and still be able to fund our schools, public safety, and roads. But this is just not true."

As the nickname suggests, Chamberlin’s proposal consists of three specific actions to generate revenue that can replace property taxes in the state.

How much money needs to be replaced?

To start with, the plan breaks down property tax revenues levied over the past year (totaling over $55 billion) as follows:

“For now, Rep. Chamberlin believes we can completely remove the idea of replacing municipal property tax levies,” a release from his office reads. “That is a decision for another day after solving the state’s part of the problem.”

In addition, Chamberlin said that water management districts could instead be funded with a fee on bottled water.

Likewise, community development districts, fire control districts, park districts, and port/inlet districts may alternatively be funded with other fees or consumption taxes.

That just leaves the roughly $43 billion in county non-school and school property tax levies.

As such, his three-part plan will consist of the following steps:

• 1. Rollback

Chamberlin suggests a rollback, which would move the state by legislation to the 2022 property tax levies — numbers he considers to be “reasonable and doable.”

“The counties were not expecting this kind of increase, yet they’ve managed to spend it all,” he said. “I am not trying to diminish inflation, but quadruple inflation on property tax is just out of control. We’ve raised our property taxes by an average of 45% just in the last four years.”

Doing so would lower the total funds that need to be replaced down to the following:

• 2. Transaction Fees

Up next is the creation of a 5% transaction fee for all real estate sales, which is expected to generate nearly $12 billion for the non-school taxes, the release reads.

It would count as a one-time fee that could be financed at closing.

“This one fee will lower the monthly payments for most homeowners by hundreds of dollars per month,” Chamberlin noted.

The plan also calls for a 5% public safety transaction fee statewide, which would be applied to travel and tourism items like rideshares, hotel rooms, hospitality venues and amusement parks. Such a fee is predicted to generate roughly $3.8 billion.

“Additionally, adding a 5% safety surcharge to sales of alcohol, tobacco and medical marijuana could be considered as required to make up for any shortfall,” the plan states.

• 3. Cent School Sales Fee

According to the proposal, collecting a 2-cent statewide funding fee would give the state around $20 billion to completely replace school property taxes.

From there, school districts would have the option of levying up to 1 more cent to cover any gaps in state funding for schools.

“This is not just a traditional increase State Sales Tax since it does not go to general revenue,” Chamberlin explained. “This is a replacement of what now is on the backs of homeowners. And we get the added benefit of the visitors coming into our state helping us fund it.”

Could this actually happen?

During the latest Legislative session, Chamberlin made property tax reform one of his main issues, including an amendment (HJR 357) that would have established a $100,000 property tax exemption for homeowners in the state.

While the legislation ultimately died in committee, he’s not the only one pursuing this sort of reform.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has echoed these sentiments over the past year, calling for state lawmakers to put together a proposal to massively slash or otherwise eliminate property taxes statewide.

“We can’t control private markets, but we can control how much they can tax you,” DeSantis said back in February. “So we’re going to be working over the next year and a half to see what we can present for voters to be able to vote in the next election for some major, major property tax limitations and reliefs.”

Property taxes are a local issue, not a state one, so an amendment would be required to change the state’s Constitution. But even if lawmakers manage to get such an amendment through, it would still take approval from 60% of Florida voters before the amendment could officially pass.

“We should put the boldest amendment on the ballot that has a chance of getting that (60% threshold),” DeSantis later wrote.

Some believe that shifting to higher taxes on goods and services could disproportionately affect consumers, particularly those with lower and middle incomes or those who do not own property. After all, sales taxes could have a disproportionate impact on these groups as compared to wealthier households.

On the flip side, opponents of property taxes argue that they unfairly target homeowners, who have already taken on all of the other burdens that come with homeownership. Worse yet, tax incidence means that the cost of these taxes could even end up falling downstream to lower-income renters who make use of these properties.

“Florida is already known as the freest state in the country, and we’ve been named as the top state economy in the nation,” Chamberlin said. “If we do this, no one will be able to touch us. And we will be the first state in the country to take a dramatic step toward eliminating the most hated tax in America.”

The next Legislative session is set to begin in January 2026. Check back with News 6 for the latest.