Florida property tax plan takes aim at snowbirds

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Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current podcast. Canadians who spend their winters in Florida are getting a front row seat to the ongoing tensions with our neighbors to the south. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wants to slash property taxes and offload some of those costs onto snowbirds. Under the plan, permanent residents of Florida, or homesteaders as they are known there, whose primary residence is valued at $250,000 US or less, would pay no property taxes by 2028. At the end of the day, it's about Florida first. We gotta put Floridians first. Um, I don't want to keep taxing Floridians on these properties to be able to subsidize, uh, a tax cut for Canadians. I'd rather the Canadians pay taxes to subsidize the reduction in Florida property taxes. It just makes sense to me. The proposed property tax changes will be on the ballot in Florida next month during the midterm elections. Glen McGill lives in Ontario but owns a home in Florida. He and his wife recently decided to sell after spending more than 15 years wintering in North Fort Myers. Glen, good morning.

Good morning.

I'm wondering how you're thinking about Florida's plans to change the property tax structure, moving toward eliminating property tax for many Floridians, while making people like you, snowbirds, pay more.

Um, I think them dropping the, uh, Floridians' taxes is probably a good idea, but making Canadians pay more, uh, there's gotta be different ways. Um, I've read some of the, uh, bill, and I don't think it's as bad as what it originally said. Um, the increases that the taxes are now, they can tax you up to an extra 10% every year, and he's dropping that down to 5% for non-homesteaders. It's bad, but it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. But it's still, the sentiments against Canadians is so bad down there that that's one of the reasons we've decided to sell and, uh, stay in Canada or pick another friendly country.

Okay, so y- as you say, look, after more than 15 years of wintering in Florida, you and your wife have said, "We're, we're out of here. We're selling." So you said, i- i- is, is it the property tax issue potentially, or is it more than that that's driving you away?

Oh, it's more than that. The ta- taxes is the smallest part that's driving us away. Uh, Trump is what's driving me away, followed by DeSantis.

Okay, and so you know a lot of local Floridians. You've spent a lot of time there over the last number of years, and I'm sure in your community there's lots of people like you, other snowbirds. Can you just walk us through how your community in Florida, as you see it, has changed over the past two years