TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez announced on Wednesday that lawmakers will consider lowering the state sales tax — a bold move as state politicians have increasingly voiced support for reducing residents’ tax burdens.
Perez pushed the proposal during a House meeting, explaining that he would ask his fellow lawmakers to craft a bill to effect the tax reduction.
“This money isn’t ours. Tax dollars don’t belong to the government,” Perez said. “They belong to the people.”
More specifically, Perez explained that he will ask the Way and Means Committee next week to produce a committee bill that would lower the state sales tax by 0.75%.
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Currently, the state sales tax it 6%, so if such a measure were to take effect, that figure would drop to 5.25%. According to Perez, the tax cut would amount to almost $5 billion per year for Florida residents.
“Of course, the special interests will say that the sky is falling and the world is ending,” Perez joked. “But it won’t. And it’s not. They have lost sight of the difference between our state’s needs and their wants. We cannot spend our way out of a spending problem. We must remove the temptation to spend.”
Perez also assured that it wouldn’t be a temporary measure like a tax holiday. Instead, the proposal pushes for a permanent reduction.
“Members, if we are successful, we will become the only state in the history of the United States of America to permanently reduce its sales tax,” he proclaimed.
Critics of these sorts of tax-cutting proposals claim that they would negatively impact the state’s revenue, potentially requiring budget cuts or higher taxes in other areas to make up the difference.
In fact, Perez said that the House budget plan this year would be even lower than the budget proposed by DeSantis.
“It would also be lower than the budget passed by the Legislature last term,” he said. “For the first time since the Great Recession, we will roll out a budget that actually spends less money than we did in the prior fiscal year.”
Meanwhile, proponents argue that cutting taxes encourages consumer spending and production in Florida, which could actually boost overall revenue for the state.
The move comes as figures like Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state lawmakers have similarly pushed to slash property taxes nationwide.
However, unlike a sales tax reduction, cutting property taxes would require an amendment to the state’s Constitution. Even if legislation pushing such a change were to pass, it would need approval by 60% of state voters in the 2026 general election to take effect.
“We can’t control private markets, but we can control how much they can tax you. So we’re going to be working over the next year and a half to see what we can present for voters to be able to vote in the next election for some major, major property tax limitations and reliefs,” DeSantis said during a news conference last month.
Aside from property taxes, DeSantis recently touted major budget surpluses in the state, using those bolstered finances to justify tax-cut proposals.
Earlier this year, DeSantis announced his “Focus on Fiscal Responsibility” budget for 2025-2026, which lists the repeal of the state’s business rent tax as a major goal for his desired tax relief package. According to his office, the repeal would save businesses in Florida around $1.6 billion.
To do so, DeSantis proposed a phased reduction to the business rent tax, dropping to 1% at the start of 2026 before being phased out entirely as of 2027.
Other features of the tax relief package include the following:
- A two-week “Back-to-School” sales tax holiday for items like school supplies, clothes and computers
- A one-month “Freedom Summer” sales tax holiday for outdoor recreation items
- A week-long “Tool Time” sales tax holiday on tools that skilled workers need for their jobs
- A “Second Amendment” sales tax holiday between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July for ammunition, firearms and related accessories
- A two-month boating fuel tax holiday
- A one-year exemption of the intangible tax on mortgages for the first $500,000 of residential for the purchase of a home
- A two-year delay on natural gas taxes that would have otherwise gone into effect on Jan. 1, 2026
DeSantis also touted the state’s “lean, mean” budget and low-tax climate as a big reason behind why so many people have been moving to the state.
“I think what’s happened in some of these states that are high-tax, high-spend is the government itself has become an interest group,” he said. “And there’s just certain constituencies that have a share of this, and so so much of government is just paying off people — whether it’s unions or other things — and so the money just disappears very quickly. And so that’s why you see their budgets escalate so much.”
Following Speaker Perez’s announcement, News 6 went to a local grocery store to speak with those who might be impacted most: Florida residents.
“I’m always for lowering taxes to citizens,” said David Vaughn Hayes before he walked inside a Publix in Orlando’s College Park neighborhood. “I think we need more money in our pockets, especially now with the current economic conditions.”
Jestin Covington agreed.
“Just savings overall,” he said, when asked how a lower sales tax could help him financially. “Going in the grocery store, being able to save a few pennies. Anything helps.”
Sherrie Graham wondered aloud: Why stop at 5.25%?
“At least 4%,” she said when asked about the ideal tax rate. “That would be a great thing.”
News 6 also spoke with an economist about the potential implications of reduced tax revenue from sales.
“A significant portion of sales tax is paid by visitors to the state of Florida, so we would be collecting less from those visitors as well,” explained Dr. Sean Snaith, the director of the Institute for Economic Forecasting at UCF.
With the introduction of a bill to lower the sales tax — coupled with the governor and other Florida Republicans musing about eliminating property taxes — Snaith noted it’s not clear what form the tax structure in Florida might take in the future.
“There’s a lot of balls still in the air being juggled policy-wise,” Snaith said. “Once that becomes a little more clear, then I think we’ll start getting some answers.”
He also suggested that reducing the sales tax could incentivize the state to slash spending.
“The legislature and the governor — if he’s in agreement with it — could move forward on cutting the sales tax,” Snaith said. “And then that would necessitate some budgetary cuts as well.”
