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Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: Lights Out, Cutting Away At Tax Cuts

Lawmakers are turning out the lights in the Capitol next week while some celebrate Easter, others observe Passover and, with any luck, all get some R and R as the clock winds down on the 2014 legislative session.

Although House floor action dragged on past 4:30 p.m. Friday in advance of the week-long respite, an empty fourth floor rotunda was eerily quiet. Perhaps the lobbyists and hangers-on were getting an early jump on the weekend, or plotting their strategies for the brief two weeks that will remain in the session when House and Senate members return April 21.

Gambling lobbyists may have already rolled up their tents earlier in the week after House Speaker Will Weatherford declared the issue dead for the rest of the session.

The Republican-dominated Legislature closed out the week with the House passing red-meat legislation dealing with guns, abortion and school vouchers on Friday, sending the items to the typically more moderate Senate with plenty of time for horse-trading on the issues before the session ends May 2.

In other bartering business, the two chambers teed up the remainder of Gov. Rick Scott’s election-year pledge to cut $500 million in taxes and fees. Disparities in the House and Senate tax break proposals are eliciting little more than a yawn from some old-schoolers, including Weatherford, who called the variations typical of the “posturing” during the latter part of the session.

TAX CUTS

The House and Senate advanced divergent roadmaps that both would lead to $500 million in tax and fee breaks for Floridians and a boost for Scott, whose popularity remains low as he vies for a second term in the governor’s mansion.

The Senate’s plan would give Floridians a single sales-tax holiday during the next year — rather than four proposed by the House — and would include money for improvements at Daytona International Speedway, a bit of home cooking pushed by Senate Finance and Tax Chairwoman Dorothy Hukill, R-Port Orange.

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday backed an amendment to replace what has been billed as the House’s “patchwork of awesomeness” tax package (HB 5601) with the Senate’s “broad-based” measures, as lawmakers work to reach the half-billion dollar, election-year benchmark set by Scott.

The committee didn’t vote on the bill. Instead the proposed changes to the House-approved measure — put on a unique Senate committee journey this week — will be returned to the lower chamber, where members are not expected to fully welcome the changes.

The Senate’s plan centers on a $64 million cut to the communications services tax imposed on cable and phone services. It also includes a tax discount on pre-paid phone plans, expected to save phone users $1.4 million; and a measure that would reduce by 20 percent the insurance premium tax on Florida-based bail bond premiums, a $700,000 reduction in state revenue.

The chambers agree on the popular back-to-school tax holiday. But the House also wants discount periods on hurricane preparation, which Scott supported; energy-saving appliances; and gym memberships.

And the House package includes a permanent sales-tax exemption for car seats and bicycle helmets for kids; an expansion of the New Markets Tax Credit program for investments in low-income communities; a temporary lifting of sales taxes on the purchase of cement mixers; a $20 million loan program for television production companies; and a plan to reduce the sales taxes businesses pay for electricity.

Late Friday afternoon, Weatherford shrugged off differences between the two chambers’ approaches.

“That’s normal…We are at the stage of session where sometimes maybe on a big tax bill like that there are some differences of opinion, maybe even some posturing, going on,” he told reporters.

Weatherford balked at giving the Daytona race track, in the midst of a major renovation project, $2 million a year for 30 years in state sales tax dollars, however. The House package does not include those funds.

“That would probably be one we would probably not be supportive of,” he said. “We have lots of time to iron out the differences, just like everything with the budget.”

by The News Service of Florida