Property Taxes

[EM Lawrence]

Does anyone have any idea if property taxes for DVC resorts will increase a lot next year if local governments try to make up for lost revenue due to this closure? Are the WDW properties able to be taxed at higher rates than those of local property owners?

 

[Chuck S]

While I don't know Florida laws specifically, here in Texas commercial property is the same tax rate as homeowners, but homeowners get a small homestead exemption, disabled vets can get up to 100% exemption, and once you reach 65, the taxes are frozen at the current amount, though the state has been looking at overturning the senior freeze.

 

[drusba]

Property taxes have two elements, assessed value and then rate of taxes applicable to that assessed value. The county assessor determines assessed value and such cannot be increased more than 3% a year or the rate of the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. For this year that rate is 1.9% maximum increase as a result. Moreover, any increase or decrease of assessed value depends ultimately on the market value of the Disney property, which, though doubtful, could possibly even go down as a result of the Coronavirus disaster. The current assessor, has for a period of four years now, been in a constant battle with all the resort type businesses in the Orlando area in his attempt to constantly raise their assessed values the maximum possible. That assessor ran a campaign for election that promised to raise the assessed values of all the evil resort companies like Disney and Universal. claiming that all the properties of those companies had been greatly under assessed by the incompetent assessors that preceded him, and substantial assessed value increases were needed to make those resort properties pay their "fair share." It is mainly his efforts that have resulted in some substantial property tax increases for DVC members in the last four years. Homeowners get a partial exemption on assessed value that businesses do not get, but that exemption does not apply to resort properties such as timeshares.

The actual taxes then depend on the amounts sought by the various goivernment entities (police, fire, schools, etc.) and what is approved then becomes a percentage per assessed value of the taxable homes and businesses in the area. That could possibly go up in an effort by some of those government entities to recover some loss revenues resulting from dealing with the coronavirus problem, but whether and how much a change there could be is anyone's guess right now.

 

[Chuck S]

It is weird to me that so much of Florida depends upon resorts and theme parks for their economic health, jobs, and so forth...but every politician seems to run on the promise of squeezing them out of money, yet all the locals complain when park tickets go up in price. It is a cycle that no one seems to understand...more taxes and expenses = higher ticket prices...which may lead to less tourism and fewer jobs.