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Monday, December 18, 2006
Save Our Homes: New study, same problems
A new study from Florida TaxWatch takes a look at Florida’s wacky property tax system and reaches the same old conclusions:
Save Our Homes, the constitutional amendment passed by Florida voters in 1992, has done nothing to rein in government spending.
Rather, Save Our Homes mainly has divorced voters from the budgeting process because their tax bills are going down, so long as they don’t move.
Save Our Homes is a tax shift that moves the tax burden from longtime homeowners onto more recent buyers and onto renters and owners of stores, office buildings, warehouses and apartments.
Making the Save Our Homes tax break “portable” would create more problems.
TaxWatch left out one of my favorite unintended consequences of Save Our Homes, which was pitched as a way to keep little old ladies from being taxed out of their homes: High rollers like Greg Norman, Jimmy Buffett and Rush Limbaugh are enjoying some of the heftiest tax breaks.
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Builder layoffs continue with 218 job cuts at DiVosta
In another symptom of the slowing housing market, DiVosta Building Corp. says it will lay off 218 of the 552 workers at its Palm Beach Gardens headquarters. (Read story here.)
The laid-off workers include 87 journeymen, 58 laborers and 50 apprentices. They’ll lose their jobs between Feb. 16 and March 1, DiVosta tells the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation.
“We’re trying to match our work force to the construction pace,” said Beth Cocchiarella, spokeswoman for DiVosta parent Pulte Homes (NYSE: PHM, $32.91).
Meantime, the National Association of Home Builders’ confidence index took a slight dip in December, with builders rating buyer traffic as “poor.”
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