While many people find them a nuisance, property taxes are the reason services are provided to you by your county and local government. Without property taxes, many services that we take for granted, such as free public schools, public libraries, the fire department, garbage pickup, etc., would not exist.
Could you imagine what would happen if people working for garbage companies didn’t exist? Trash would be piling in our communities, and Orange County would reek. And on another scale, in a world where firefighters and police officers suddenly weren’t getting paid, we’d see it have a significant effect on our communities.
To put it in perspective, let’s say that the worst happens to you — you get into a horrible car accident. There wouldn’t be anyone to help you out of that wreckage, transport you safely, or even arrive on the scene to help mitigate the incident. Property taxes fund the personnel working in emergency services, as well as the tools, operating costs, and utilities that enable these services to operate effectively.
Property in Orange County is appraised once every five years based on current and previous data of your property. There are three methods used in factoring property appraisal: The Sales Comparison approach, the Cost approach, and the Income approach.
The Sales Comparison approach bases the value of a property on other sales of comparable properties. The Cost Approach examines the cost it would incur today to build an almost replica of the structure on the parcel. If your property is not new, the appraiser will also determine the value your property has lost over time. This approach also includes the value of the land you own, regardless of whether it has any buildings on it. Finally, the Income approach primarily evaluates commercial property, assessing the potential revenue it may generate and the expected return or profit it may yield.
This provides an insight into how the county determines the amount of property taxes people pay. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not just a random number made up by some official; it is a logical number that has been deliberated and evaluated thoroughly to ensure that everyone pays their fair share in obtaining access to public services.
So, why discuss property taxes now? According to Newsweek, Gov. Ron DeSantis has plans to propose eliminating property taxes in Florida. There are beliefs and opinions that property taxes are oppressive and that one should not “pay rent to the government.” However, property taxes are not the same as rent. Property taxes are a payment for services received from local governments, services that, if you had to try and pay for on your own, would be almost impossible.
For example, if there’s no public education, you would have to send your child to private school. The average property tax in Orange County is approximately $5,000 for a home valued at $300,000. The average tuition at private schools in Orlando is approximately $8,000. That’s a $3,000 increase just to cover the cost of school. What about paying someone to pick up your trash, or putting out fires in case of an emergency? How will potholes in streets and bumps in sidewalks fix themselves? These are just a few glimpses into where the money from our property taxes goes, and they’re essential.
Obviously, potential cuts on property taxes most likely will not be this extreme, but they are still critical enough to affect our communities to a noticeable extent. Additionally, rural communities and governments might be hit the hardest by any property tax cut. This poses an issue because, while larger governments, such as Orange County or Miami-Dade County, can still rely on tourist and sales taxes to some extent to fund services, rural areas do not have this same cushion. Cuts in rural counties could fiscally strain them and potentially prevent them from providing certain goods and services.
While homeownership is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve each day, cutting property taxes is not the only solution to achieving affordable and traditional housing. According to the Miami Herald, there are already programs such as homestead exemptions that help relieve the burden of property taxes. Expanding these programs or searching for ways to make paying property taxes easier for middle-class owners would be a better way of approaching the affordable housing situation.
Overall, simply cutting property taxes is not a long-term solution to affordability issues. In fact, it can exacerbate some of these issues. The primary role of local governments is to provide for and protect the people within their jurisdiction, and local elected officials bear the responsibility of addressing regional issues. If the state cuts property taxes, local governments will have to reduce their services. Not only will an educational and community resource be lost to the people, but jobs will also be lost. That’s basically exchanging one issue for another.
It’s easy to come out and say “let’s cut taxes!” without realizing the consequences of such words. Ultimately, we need to explore alternative solutions that benefit everyone and can be sustained within our communities in the long term.