The
Florida Legislative session has ended, and unfortunately,our sales tax bill did not pass.
As successful as the meetings were
with all the representatives and senators, we were unsuccessful in
getting our bill in the tax package.
As most of you know, we have been
swinging away at eliminating our requirement to pay sales tax for the
last six years. This year was our most promising year as Vice President
Reimer, Secretary O’Rourke, Past President Burt Hodges, and
Administrative Director Amy O’Rourke, along with your lobbyists, Cynthia
and Lauren, met with our sponsors and members of the committees who
made the decisions.
Everyone we met with was supportive of our Sale Tax
legislation. Our bills on both the house and senate sides made it
through committee, and we expected these bills would have been adopted
into the tax package. Unfortunately, we were not part of the package
when the tax package came out.
We heard the legislative body decided to
make all decisions for tax cuts only apply to one year and our language
was for longer. It was more important for the legislation to eliminate
sales tax for visiting businesses than the hard-working Florida
businesses that should not be charging a service sales tax!
The only
good news is that we were able to substantially reduce the fiscal impact
and hope next session we can get the number closer to the accurate,
nominal impact. We have the sponsor on the House side prepared and are
considering our Senate sponsor, depending on election results.
I
want to thank our lobbyists at Cynergy Consulting, Cynthia, and Lauren,
for the long days into this fight. Without their efforts, we would have
never gotten as far as we did! Thank you very much, ladies.
I
am frustrated with this outcome, as I am sure you all are, but this was
the furthest we have moved since I was involved with this effort.
However, our fight is not over.
I will be asking the new FALI president to
allow me to serve as the Chairperson of the Legislative Committee as I exit the
office of the President.
With the gains we made this year, I
genuinely expect the sales tax issue to be successful next legislative
session. We will file the bill early and sheperd it through the process
that begins next year in March 2023.
I look forward to seeing each of you in Tampa May 5th - 7th
at our annual conference.
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