On amendments, voters not quite as anti-tax as Scott, Legislature

On the 2010 campaign trail, Rick Scott called Florida's property tax system its "No. 1 tax problem.”

The 2012 general election gave Florida voters several opportunities to express if they shared his appetite for reducing the tax burden. Of 11 proposed constitutional amendments placed on the ballot by the Legislature and approved by Scott, several focused on property tax exemptions.

Voters shot down eight amendments, including Amendment 4, which would have offered $1.7 billion in tax relief mainly to businesses, first-time home buyers and second-home owners. City and county government officials warned they would have to scale down services or raise taxes to cope with the tax break if it passed.

Voters also killed a measure favored by Scott that would have doubled the tax exemption for businesses with tangible personal property -- furniture, machinery, shelving and other equipment -- resulting in a $20 million tax cut. Amendment 10 also would have allowed local governments to approval additional exemptions beyond the $50,000 exemption.

Still, three targeted tax-relief proposals -- engineered by the Legislature, not Scott -- nabbed the required 60 percent approval from voters. We should note, though, that these measures specifically say that the property owners are not exempt from paying school taxes.

Amendment 2 expands a property tax discount to disabled veterans who moved to Florida after entering the military. Amendment 9 gives a full property tax exemption to the spouses of military veterans and first responders who are killed in the line of duty. And Amendment 11 permits local governments to give an additional homestead tax exemption for certain low-income seniors.

That said, these amendments don't really help the part of Scott's 7-7-7 plan that called for reducing the state-imposed school property tax his first year in office and beyond. His promise to reduce the mill by 19 percent is Promise Broken, and this promise to reduce it by another mill over seven years remains Stalled.