Miami Libertarians Endorse Amendment 3 Property Tax Reform

RESOLUTION OF THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF MIAMI-DADE COUNTY

ENDORSING THE NOVEMBER 2026 PROPERTY-TAX AMENDMENT AND CALLING FOR PERMANENT VOTER CONTROL OVER PROPERTY-TAX GROWTH

WHEREAS, private property is a fundamental element of individual liberty, and a system under which a person can lose a fully paid-for home for failure to continue paying government based upon its assessed value is fundamentally inconsistent with secure private ownership;

WHEREAS, Florida’s property-tax system creates an additional structural accountability problem because property-tax collections can increase substantially when taxable property values appreciate even when elected officials do not enact a corresponding increase in the nominal millage rate;

WHEREAS, local taxing authorities establish millage rates annually, while those rates are applied against taxable property values, meaning that rising taxable values can produce substantially greater government revenue unless elected officials affirmatively reduce the rate sufficiently to offset that growth;

WHEREAS, voters generally receive no separate annual referendum asking whether county or municipal government should collect the additional aggregate revenue produced by appreciating taxable values;

WHEREAS, an increase in the market value of someone’s home does not mean that the homeowner suddenly consumes a proportionately greater amount of police protection, fire protection, road capacity, permitting, code enforcement or other government services;

WHEREAS, property appreciation therefore provides government with a tax base capable of growing independently of either population growth or any demonstrated increase in the public’s demand for government services;

WHEREAS, Florida TaxWatch reports that Florida property-tax levies have increased by nearly 40 percent in only three years and have more than doubled over the past decade, reaching approximately $59.2 billion for Fiscal Year 2025-26;

WHEREAS, statewide property-tax levies increased approximately 108.1 percent from 2014 through 2024 while the combined increase in population and inflation over the same period was approximately 54.9 percent;

WHEREAS, Florida’s inflation-adjusted gross domestic product increased from approximately $946 billion in 2015 to approximately $1.39 trillion in 2025, or roughly 47 percent, meaning that property-tax growth has also substantially outpaced the broad growth of Florida’s real economy over approximately the same decade;

WHEREAS, these trends illustrate a fundamental defect in government accountability: local-government budgets can expand substantially without elected officials having to ask voters to approve a correspondingly larger tax rate or a correspondingly larger level of government;

WHEREAS, government should not receive an automatic financial windfall merely because families, businesses and investors have made a community’s property more valuable;

WHEREAS, when government revenue grows independently of voter approval and faster than population, inflation and economic output, budgets become increasingly disconnected from both voter consent and measurable demand for public services;

WHEREAS, this disconnect weakens accountability because a government agency may receive additional funding whether its service improves, stays the same or becomes worse;

WHEREAS, no private business receives a guaranteed increase in revenue merely because the property occupied by its customers appreciated in value, yet local governmental institutions can experience precisely this type of revenue growth;

WHEREAS, the Libertarian Party of Florida platform states that government should rely upon voluntary revenues rather than coercive taxation wherever possible, opposes imposing new taxes to finance new governmental projects, requires new projects to be funded through existing revenues by eliminating inefficiency or reducing spending, and supports stronger limits on governmental budget growth;

WHEREAS, CS/HJR 1-F, submitted to Florida voters for the November 2026 General Election, substantially increases the homestead exemption, reduces the annual assessment-growth limitation for non-homestead property from 10 percent to 5 percent, and places additional constitutional limitations on the uses of local ad valorem revenue;

WHEREAS, this proposal is not a complete libertarian solution to property taxation and does not eliminate every unequal treatment within Florida’s property-tax structure;

WHEREAS, tax relief without corresponding expenditure restraint can merely shift tax burdens from one taxpayer to another, a concern LPMD itself identified when opposing the much narrower 2024 Amendment 5;

WHEREAS, the proper response to reduced property-tax revenue is therefore lower spending, not replacement taxes, higher fees or new assessments;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Libertarian Party of Miami-Dade County ENDORSES A YES VOTE on the substance of Florida’s November 2026 property-tax constitutional amendment, CS/HJR 1-F, as an important step toward reducing the government’s claim against privately owned property;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that because litigation pending as of August 2026 has resulted in a court order requiring revision of the amendment’s ballot title and summary, LPMD’s published voter guide should reproduce the final legally approved ballot wording once that wording is settled rather than relying upon superseded language;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that LPMD opposes any effort by counties, municipalities or other taxing authorities to “backfill” property-tax reductions through new taxes, increased tax rates, higher fees, special assessments or other mechanisms intended merely to preserve the previous spending trajectory;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that local governments confronted with reduced property-tax revenue should first:

1. Eliminate unnecessary and duplicative programs;
2. Reduce administrative overhead;
3. Eliminate corporate subsidies and politically favored grants;
4. Sell or privatize government property and enterprises not required for essential governmental functions;
5. Competitively contract services where private providers can perform them more efficiently;
6. Consolidate duplicative departments;
7. Review compensation, consulting and procurement costs;
8. Measure the actual outputs produced by every major department; and
9. Prioritize essential public-safety and infrastructure obligations over discretionary political programs.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that LPMD calls for a new standard of fiscal transparency under which Miami-Dade County and every municipality should annually publish, in a simple comparative format:

• total property-tax collections;
• total taxable property value;
• millage rates;
• total operating expenditures;
• population;
• inflation;
• real economic growth;
• staffing levels;
• major service outputs; and
• the cost per unit of those services.

A government that claims it requires more money should be able to demonstrate what additional service taxpayers received for that additional money.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that LPMD supports a longer-term Truth in Property Taxation reform under which appreciating property values should not automatically increase government revenue.

When the taxable value of a jurisdiction increases, the millage rate should automatically roll back sufficiently to produce approximately the same inflation-adjusted revenue per resident unless elected officials publicly vote for a higher amount under enhanced procedural requirements or voters themselves approve the increase.

Such a system would reverse the current incentive.

Instead of taxpayers having to organize politically to stop government from keeping a property-value windfall, government officials would have to affirmatively justify why they need additional revenue.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that LPMD ultimately favors reform that moves Florida away from taxation based merely upon ownership of private property and toward voluntary payments, genuine user charges where appropriate, competitive provision of services and a substantially smaller scope of local government.

The principle is simple:

Higher property values belong to property owners — not automatically to government.

If government wants more money, government should have to explain what additional service it intends to provide, demonstrate why existing revenues are insufficient, and accept political responsibility for asking taxpayers to pay more.

Property appreciation should make Floridians wealthier.

It should not automatically make their government larger.

Adopted by the Executive Committee of the Libertarian Party of Miami-Dade County on August 11, 2026.