{"id":223157,"date":"2026-04-08T09:23:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T09:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/223157\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T09:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T09:23:12","slug":"florida-lawmaker-reveals-new-plan-to-eliminate-property-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/223157\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida lawmaker reveals new plan to eliminate property taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2013 With property tax reform stalling in the Legislature<\/a>, one state lawmaker says he\u2019s now found a new way to push it through: a petition.<\/p>\n

Last week, state Rep. Ryan Chamberlin (R-Belleview) announced his plan to lead a citizens initiative<\/a> to get rid of property taxes from the state Constitution.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will help lead an effort to pass a citizen constitutional amendment that bans ad valorem taxes on real estate levied by any level of government,\u201d Chamberlin declared. \u201cThen, the Legislature will be forced to implement new solutions to make sure we have a system in place for funding police, fire departments, and schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

[BELOW: DeSantis weighs in on latest Florida tax ranking]<\/p>\n

During the latest Legislative session, Chamberlin filed an amendment (HJR 787<\/a>) that would have stripped local governments and school districts of the ability to levy property taxes.<\/p>\n

It was meant to be combined with another bill (HB 791<\/a>) that imposes a transaction fee for all real estate sales, which would help counties make up for any funding lost from the tax cuts. Chamberlin also wanted to rely on a combination of sales and tourism taxes to fill in the gaps.<\/p>\n

However, both pieces of legislation ultimately died in committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one is interested in defunding any of the vitally important government service funded by local taxes,\u201d Chamberlin explained. \u201cIt\u2019s just time to figure out a better way to pay for it than letting government continue to be the owner of all property and impose an onerous tax system on our people.\u201d<\/p>\n

[BELOW: Here\u2019s a look at the property tax amendments that died]<\/p>\n

In Florida, property taxes are a local issue, so a constitutional amendment is required if the state wants to make any cuts.<\/p>\n

There are several ways this can happen:<\/p>\n

A citizens\u2019 initiative<\/p>\n

Of these, the initiative process requires a sponsor to obtain petitions signed by voters across the state. This means garnering at least 891,523 valid signatures.<\/p>\n

And even if he does get to that point, the measure would still need at least 60% voter approval during the next general election to take effect.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis \u2014 a vocal proponent of property tax cuts<\/a> \u2014 has said that the issue will be revisited during a special Legislative session planned for later this month.<\/p>\n

Rep. Chamberlin\u2019s full message reads as follows:<\/p>\n

Release from Rep. Ryan Chamberlin’s office (Ryan Chamberlin)Breaking News Alerts<\/p>\n

Get breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2013 With property tax reform stalling in the Legislature, one state lawmaker says he\u2019s now found…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2715,28,30,100,29,2161,99,232,8527],"class_list":{"0":"post-223157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-elections","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-headlines","11":"tag-florida-legislature","12":"tag-florida-news","13":"tag-government","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-tallahassee","16":"tag-taxes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}