Lawsuit: Save our Homes tax cap under fire
Mar 19, 2007
The plaintiffs, who have homes in Santa Rosa Beach and Destin, claim they are paying a disproportionate share of property taxes compared to Florida residents with homestead properties.


“There is a mindset in Florida to transfer your burden to other states,” said Birmingham attorney William Slaughter, lead counsel for the homeowners.


Slaughter’s wife, Diana, is named as a plaintiff along with Jerome and Joyce Lanning of Birmingham and Marlow Reese of Montgomery. The lawsuit was filed Feb. 22 in Leon County. In the past four years, more than $8 billion in taxes has been diverted from Florida residents to out-of-state residents, Slaughter said. The suit asks to refund nonhomestead property owners with taxes they’ve been assessed since 2003 above what they would have paid as full-time residents.


“The hope is to put things back on an equal basis,” Slaughter said.


Florida voters approved the Save Our Homes amendment in 1992 to cap increases in assessed values on homestead properties at no more than 3 percent a year.


Slaughter said it’s “totally unfair” for a person who has part-time residency to pay more for infrastructure than a fulltime resident.


“He’s not there all the time. He doesn’t send his children to school (in Florida),” he said.


But John Dent, a Sarasota attorney representing the Okaloosa County Property Appraiser’s office, said, “It’s not a discrimination against out-of-state residents.” States have a history of “preferential treatment for resident homesteaded properties,” Dent said.


The lawsuit names as defendants Gov. Charlie Crist and all Okaloosa and Walton taxing authorities, including property appraisers, county commissions and school boards.


“The issue that has come up is not something that is under the control of the school district,” said Walton County Superintendent of Schools Carlene Anderson. “We don’t make the 3 percent cap rule.”


Okaloosa County Property Appraiser Pete Smith recognizes that the cap has “created tremendous inequities among the different types of properties.” But Smith pointed out that voters approved the measure. “They went to the polls and passed the amendment,” he said.


Dent said he’s taking the lawsuit seriously. But he believes the court will follow precedent and rule in favor of the state’s rights.


“I understand the concern. It’s an issue that’s in the forefront right now,” he said.

Slaughter maintains that all Americans are “national citizens” and should be treated as such.


“If the hunting is good in Montana and not so great in Wisconsin, the Montana officials cannot limit hunting licenses to those in Montana,” he said.


Copyright © 2007 Northwest Florida Daily News, Fort Walton Beach, Rachel Kyler. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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