Affordability has become a buzzword for Florida politicians lately, and Gov. Ron DeSantis is pushing an idea he says will help — eliminating or reducing property taxes.

On Monday, a group of Florida legislators — the Florida House Select Committee on Property Taxes — met to hear presentations about ideas ranging from eliminating property taxes to offering targeted discounts, with the possibility of putting a property tax amendment on the 2026 ballot.

While the select committee assesses various plans, there’s a fundamental part of the conversation that needs to confronted: the financial impact of cutting property taxes.

Cutting or eliminating property taxes won’t make the need for the services they pay for disappear. It will just shift the burden. If lawmakers push to cut property taxes, they must be honest with voters about the consequences, which could include service cuts or new taxes.

Local governments depend on property taxes to fund first responders, police and schools. In 2024, according to Florida TaxWatch, property taxes generated approximately $55 billion statewide and $19 billion was paid by homesteaded properties — meaning more than 30% of revenue came from homeowners.

If $19 billion disappears, who covers that cost? Pretending Florida can afford to eliminate property taxes is at best a fever dream and, at worst, a reckless gamble.

As former state senator and president of the Florida Policy Project Jeff Brandes told the Miami Herald Editorial Board, “It’s institutional malpractice.” He likened doing away with property taxes to a doctor deciding to do a procedure without ordering an X-ray. “He’s only talked about the cuts, but not about the impact,” Brandes said, of DeSantis’ proposal.

And the potential impacts are distressing. Research by the Florida Policy Institute (FPI) found, using preliminary 2025 data on taxable revenue from Florida’s Department of Revenue, that eliminating property taxes on homesteaded properties would likely leave a hole of over $18.5 billion in local budgets. Counties would lose $7.8 billion, school districts $7.7 billion, and municipalities $3 billion. Miami-Dade County would lose $899 million — about 5% of its budget — and Miami-Dade schools would lose $977 million.

“Eliminating property taxes, even partially through a homestead exemption, will leave local governments and school districts scrambling to balance their ledgers, whether it’s through cutting vital programs and services or by introducing or raising new fees to replace the lost revenue,” said FPI CEO Sadaf Knight said in a press release.

Earlier this year, FPI found that eliminating property taxes would require the state sales tax to be doubled to 12% to make up the difference, a tax increase that would disproportionately affect low- to middle-income families.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Rep. Byron Donalds brought up that very point at a recent campaign stop in Tampa. “Would I love to eliminate property taxes? Yes,” he said, as the Florida Phoenix reported. “However, if we eliminate property taxes in the state of Florida, we’d have to double the sales tax.”

DeSantis, though, has continued to promote the idea. During an event last week in Apalachicola, DeSantis said homeowners should own their homes “...free and clear of the government, that they shouldn’t be able to charge you rent just to live in your own house.”

Taxes, of course, aren’t rent. They pay for services like police and schools.

We understand that people are weary of bloated government and elected officials who are too quick to spend money as long as taxpayers are footing the bill. But cutting back means someone is going to feel the pain. In Miami-Dade, the county commission recently struggled to fix a $400 million deficit in the budget. The possibility of an additional gas tax was floated. Imagine if that scenario played out statewide, every year going forward.

Eliminating property taxes runs the risk of becoming a shell game rather than a solution. The cups move, the numbers shift, but the bill remains — or grows larger for those least able to pay.

Affordability is an enormous problem in Florida, but eliminating property taxes isn’t the answer. Serious relief requires thoughtful reform, not Band-Aid policies that risk school funding and community safety.

Property tax relief may sound great, but it only shifts the cost elsewhere. Here’s a thought: Maybe the Florida Legislature should wait until DeSantis is out of office next year and consider more equitable ways to provide relief to all Floridians, not just homeowners.

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