Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis recommended Florida eliminate more than 1,000 state jobs in a spending proposal released Tuesday that cuts the current budget by more $4.6 billion while maintaining popular sales tax holidays.
DeSantis is calling for a $114.4 billion budget. Unlike most years, the presidential candidate announced his budget far from the state Capitol in a news conference held at a charter school on Marco Island in southwest Florida.
Instead of detailing what jobs he wants cut, DeSantis spent more time highlighting past achievements and lamenting the decision to exclude the undefeated Florida State University Seminoles from the college football championship playoff.
“sales tax holidays”? Did sales tax just get more regressive?
Just days without state sales tax. Some states have them, some don’t. A lot of the time local municipalities keep their ~1.5% sales tax on those days, so they see a pretty decent boost in revenue during them.
But doesn’t it mean that people who can time their big purchases escape paying? I’m thinking yachts and cars and luxury stuff. I guess it depends on the state how much of the revenue comes from that. Interesting the effect on municipal revenue. I had never heard of it.
Believe it or not, no. The sales tax holidays are actually targeted on certain categories rather than across the board. Sales taxes (including Florida’s) are regressive, but in this case the tourism situation actually makes it slightly less regressive.
So many tourism dollars flow through that with a 6% sales tax they get by with no income tax at all. Groceries are exempt from the sales tax, as are rentals of 6 months or longer - two major expense categories for lower incomes.
Unsurprisingly, the sales tax holiday dates come outside the November-April tourist season - with the exception of one of the back-to-school weeks.
Thanks for this, I just looked up the same thing
Wouldn’t a break on sales tax be a good thing though since sales tax is regressive?
I’m thinking it’s great for poor people, but it’s much more useful for the wealthy who make bigger single purchases that can be scheduled, so the state loses more potential revenue from the top. Though, I just checked and they seem to exclude higher prices items from the holiday, so my fears are unfounded.
One of those broken clocks being right twice a day things for Florida on this one. We were always lucky enough to not need to worry about food or the very basics, but my state’s tax free day during back to school always helped a lot. Most stores would do extra sales during it as well, so school shopping ended up being a fair bit cheaper.