Property tax cuts taking effect

After 32 years, a pair of tax cut measures have dropped Floridians’ property taxes. Senate and Department of Revenue staffers told the Senate Finance and Tax Committee that non-school property tax collections dropped 2.1 percent in 2007 after the legislature ordered a tax rate rollback. Then they dropped 3.8 percent in 2008 after voters approved a tax-cutting constitutional amendment. Even school-based property taxes, normally exempt from such cuts, have declined, but that’s mostly due to plunging property values.