Taxes

Let’s contrast this. Here is a leftist:

Now let’s compare that post to this one from a prominent Republican who is opposed to the elimination of Florida’s property taxes. Click on this link to read the entire conversation: (this was removed due to confusion between two similar sounding names.)

There is no functional difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. Both parties want to take your money. The only difference between the two is which set of cronies are the recipients of your tax dollars that they they return to the party in question. It’s all a big lie.

I’ve said this tons of times: just because Democrats are your enemy doesn’t mean that Republicans are your friend. I’m sick of both parties, as all they do is take my money and my freedom while telling me it’s for my own good, because they know how to spend my money better than I, but it always seems to benefit them more than it does me.

Party of small government and fiscal conservatism, my white ass. I may just return to my previous philosophy of “voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil” and not vote for candidates of either party. I will, however, vote to cut taxes and strip the government of powers at every opportunity.

I won’t vote for a Democrat, but Republicans are going to have to earn my vote. Give me a reason to vote for you- don’t just talk about being small government, prove it.

The two most prolific opponents of cutting Florida property taxes I see on my feed are Jeff Brandes and Holly Bullard.

Holly Bullard is the chief strategy and development officer of the same institute. Her job is directing fundraising, policy advocacy, coalition building, outreach and communications strategies. She makes $110,000 per year.

Florida Policy Institute is a left of center NGO that specializes in collecting government grants, as far as I can tell. Their funding is part of a nearly impenetrable web of grants and untraceable funding. It appears to me as if it were another grift.

We keep being told how eliminating property taxes will mean roads, the fire department, and schools will be unfunded. They tell you so because everyone wants those services, but here is a great example of where property taxes go.

That’s right- Hillsboro county is going to use a billion dollars of taxpayer funds to build a new stadium for the Tamp Bay Rays. That works out to nearly $2,000 per household. They powers that be claim no one will notice, because the billion will come from county reserves. See, you won’t notice how we stole a bunch of money from you so we could pay a bunch of grown men a hundred million apiece to play a child’s game.

Incidentally, the team is worth $1.7 billion, but the taxpayers are expected to build half of the $2.8 billion stadium they will play in. How about instead, we let the taxpayers keep their money, and the team can charge what the traffic will bear for tickets instead of forcing taxpayers to fund your business?

EDITED TO ADD:

If the new field lasts as long as the old one, the stadium will cost $80 million for each year it’s used, or about $1 million per game. There are 25,000 seats in the stadium, meaning the team would have to add $40 to the price of each and every ticket to pay for the stadium themselves. That seems reasonable to me, and if people won’t pay it, then does Tampa really need baseball?

The standard argument about getting rid of property taxes is always “Who will pay for Fire Dept, Police, Schools, Roads?”

Even so, the proposed law would cut non-school ad valorem taxes for homestead property. Schools won’t be touched, as they are exempt. How about the other services?

Let’s use Daytona Beach as an example. You will see why I chose Daytona shortly. Daytona Beach has adopted a $379.8 million budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year (beginning Oct. 1, 2025), a 4.1% increase in property tax revenue driven by rising property values. The budget holds the millage rate at 5.9300 ($5.93 per $1,000 of taxable value). About a third of the city budget is from ad valorem (property) taxes. However, only a third of ad valorem taxes are from homestead property. The vast majority of property taxes are paid on commercial property like hotels, stores, and rental property. Overall, the loss of homestead ad valorem taxes would only cut city revenues by about 12%.

In Daytona, police and fire take up 55%, roads are about 15%, and schools take up 0% of the city budget. That means expenses that aren’t fire dept, police, schools, or roads comprise 30% of the city budget. In other words, the 70% of the budget for the police, fire, schools, and roads wouldn’t be touched if property taxes on owner occupied homes.

Especially if you consider that those departments are filled with waste, fraud, and corruption. One firefighter in Daytona blew the whistle on the department cooking the books and wasting damned near a million bucks a year. What did he get for his efforts? He was terminated. What’s going to happen there is he will sue the county and will likely get a huge paycheck because it is illegal to take action against a whistleblower. Somehow, my tax dollars will pay for the corruption, and will also pay for the lawsuits resulting from that corruption.

There are the people (mostly women, and disproportionally black) who think arguing with the cops while demanding to speak with a supervisor will get them out of legal trouble.

Then there are the dumbasses who have taken the “don’t fight on the road, fight in court” advice to heart, and do some studying on the Internet. They don’t understand legal terminology, so they attempt to fake it by spouting a bunch of big words arranged into nonsensical phrases, using them as if they were the magic words in a spell that will make the bad consequences of their actions go away. Some of them even comment on this blog.

It’s tiresome and I can’t imagine how much restraint some of those in the courthouse have to put up with. Heck, I have problems dealing with it on this very blog. Let me illustrate:

Look, I make no bones about being more than disappointed with how our government does business. However, the things some of these outright morons come up with are simply incorrect and won’t work. They haven’t worked. No, you can’t get out of paying income taxes by casting a magic spell using vague Latin sounding phrases in court. Wesley Snipes tried using the 861 argument, and he went to prison for four years. He tried making the argument that he isn’t obligated to pay taxes. He has an outstanding $23 million tax bill. They have been fighting this in court since 2006. The IRS offered to settle it for $9.5 million, but Snipes refused.

This argument has been ruled frivolous in DOZENS of appellate cases. It just isn’t a thing. Proving that everything that comes up on this blog has been discussed already, I posted on this back in 2008. As I said then:

I agree that progressive income taxes are [morally and ethically] wrong. I agree that taking my money to give to someone else in a socialistic redistribution of wealth is the equivalent of armed robbery. I disagree that the tax code has such ludicrous loopholes.

I will not entertain any argument to the contrary in the comments to this post, unless that comment comes with a valid citation to an appellate case verifying your position. I am not going to turn this blog into a Sovereign citizen sounding board.

However, in the interest of fairness, anyone who wishes to set up their own blog to espouse those theories is perfectly welcome to do so. Just contact me, and I can set you up on this very server for the low, low price of $15 per month. The only rule I have for server space here is no porn. It takes up too much bandwidth and invites accusations of child porn and all of the scrutiny that comes with it.

Last rant for income taxes for the 2025 tax year. I finally filed my taxes this year. My wife and I made $17,000 more in 2025 than we did in 2024. Thanks to changes in our tax situation, we lost $28,000 in tax deductions and another $12,000 in credits thanks to changes in the tax law, with the result of us paying $20,900 more in taxes for 2025 than we did in 2024.

That’s right- we got a $17,000 raise, but wound up taking home $3,900 less. Thanks a lot to the government.

Meanwhile, there are millions here in the US who don’t work, don’t pay taxes, and still hate me for paying their bills…

My second post of the day has been delayed, on account of myself and Turbo Tax trying to get my taxes done. This is a project I thought was (nearly) complete two months ago, but there was more left to be done than I realized. This post will have to do, I guess.

Alas, the BBB passed by Trump has skinned away many of my deductions of past years, thus forcing me to pay more in taxes. I am trying earnestly to keep that number to a minimum, but many deductions begin to phase out or become eliminated at an income of $146,000 for a couple, and that really isn’t a very high number.

The final bill is that I still owe slightly less than $3,000. In total, I paid more than $61,000 this year in taxes. The report from Amazon alone says I paid $1400 in sales taxes. It’s infuriating to see those numbers, then see people on Social Media saying taxes need to be raised. Why, I asked one of them, should someone who makes more pay a higher rate? If the percentage is the same for everyone, a person making $100k would pay 5 times in taxes what a person making $20k. That isn’t enough though. Some say that no one should have more than X amount of money.

The answer? Because, he said, they can afford it.

So because someone has more than you, you feel it is your place to steal what they have earned.

• If someone takes my money for his own benefit, he is a thief.
• If someone takes my money to feed his child, he is still a thief.
• If someone takes my money at gunpoint, he is a robber and a thief.
• If ten people take my money at gunpoint, they are a gang of thieves.
• If a thousand of my neighbors take my money, they are no better.
• If they all vote to have someone else take my money at gunpoint, at some point the left feels that this is legitimate.

The answer I get is “well, that’s called taxes.” I say bullshit. Taxes are so the government can provide for the general welfare. Taking someone’s money so courts, the military, and other services everyone benefits from is providing for the general welfare. Taking that money so Sharkeesh’a Negron and Juan Illegal* can sit at home and pop out a dozen kids without having to produce anything is not. It’s theft.

OK, I’m just working myself up, thinking that it takes me several months of work to pay my taxes.

To say the least, I am pretty grumpy and there will be some alcohol involved this evening. Of course, it will be taxed.

* As an example, see this post from 2010 where I outline just how profitable it can be to be an illegal immigrant.

The Florida house of representatives approved a ballot measure for this year’s election. The proposal would allow voters to approve an elimination of all non-school property taxes for homestead property. Sixty percent of those voting would need to approve it, then it would become part of the state Constitution. This proposal still needs to be approved by the state Senate in order to make it on the ballot, and it will have a much harder battle there, because the Democrats are absolutely opposed to it.

You will recall from my post of a couple of years ago:

In Florida, the tax assessor decides what the “fair market value” of your house is. The taxable value is then calculated by taking the market value and subtracting your homestead exemption. In order to have a homestead exemption, the owner of the property must live there as their primary residence. In other words, commercial and rental property doesn’t get a homestead exemption. The taxable value is then subject to being taxed. If you want more detail on how all of this works, click on this link to my previous post.

There are also numerous carve-outs for various groups.

• The homestead exemption is $25,000 on the first $50k of value, then another $25,000 for the next $50k of value, but that second $25k is only for non-school taxes.
• Additional exemption for residents 65 or older who make less than $38,686 per year
• Total exemption for totally and permanently disabled veterans, surviving spouses, or first responders.
• No property taxes for  active-duty personnel deployed outside the U.S.

The result of all of this is many people already don’t pay taxes. In my town, there are 1,000 homes total. Two neighborhoods were recently built in the town- my own, and one other. Those two communities have 200 homes in them, so 20% of the town’s homes. Those homes pay more than 50% of the town’s taxes. Many homes in the town, including those of three of the five city commissioners, pay no taxes at all.

As a result, taxes are very tilted. Renters pay more than owners (because landlords don’t get tax exemptions). Those who have lived in their homes for a long time don’t pay any (or very little) in taxes.

The left is pissed about this. They are all singing the same song- claiming that this is a tax break for so-called “boomers” because GenZ doesn’t own houses. Isn’t it odd that the left constantly wants corporations to pay taxes, but they finally understand that companies don’t pay taxes- instead, they treat taxes like any other expense, and pass those expenses on to the consumer.

The left claims that property taxes are essential for things like police and fire, but ignore that overall, ad valorum taxes are only 18% of local tax revenues. Still they claim the following would be affected, but are lying:

• Law enforcement
• Social services
• Parks
• Environmental programs
• Fire districts
• Emergency medical services
• Schools
• Roads

Law enforcement, fire, EMS, and police are specifically mentioned in the law and will have required funding. School taxes are exempt. What this leaves is Social services (giveaways), Parks and environmental programs (luxury items), and roads (already funded by gasoline taxes and tolls). What the left is upset about is the funding for things like learing centers and other graft that permits them to hand out money to their wealthy well connected patrons.

The Senate session ends March 13. The odds that this gets passed before then are long. It probably won’t happen.