After a year of soaring rhetoric that Florida's property tax system is broken, state lawyers are set to argue next week that Save Our Homes serves a valid public purpose and shouldn't be scrapped.
The protection that limits how much taxes can go up on resident homeowners is being challenged by a group of Alabama lawyers in Leon County Circuit Court, where a hearing on the state's motion to dismiss is set for Monday.
Birmingham, Ala., residents Jerome and Joyce Lanning own a second home in the Destin area where their taxes have doubled since 1995 without the cap. They want class-action status to include every snowbird with a second home in Florida, and scared lawmakers enough to get a briefing on the case during their June property tax special session.
They also want the state to block the tax cuts headed for property owners this year on the grounds that everyone will benefit from the heightened burdens of non-homesteaders.
Lawmakers called Save Our Homes "broken" during the session as they placed a referendum on the Jan. 29 ballot that asks homesteaders to trade the cap for a bigger homestead exemption.
Meanwhile, the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission is slated next month to start studying how to change Save Our Homes to help those "trapped" in their homes by the tax break.
But government lawyers have written in court filings that the amendment "does not deny equal treatment to non-residents, nor does it discriminate against them" as it relates to the Fourteenth Amendment's privileges and immunities clause.
Nor does it violate the Commerce Clause because "any slight or incidental burden ... resulting from the Save Our Homes amendment is outweighed by its benefits in promoting the public interest," wrote Greg Stewart, a Tallahassee lawyer representing Okaloosa and Walton counties.