Florida deployment homestead exemption

[nunya]

If you own a house in Florida, filed a homestead exemption, and have been deployed in the last year to OEF/OIF/OND, read this: https://srcpa.org/.

Florida approved an additional tax exemption on top of your homestead exemption proportional to the days in 2010 deployed. Looks like it'll be every year from now on, too, so keep it in mind next time you get non-vold to Balad. If you're home right now, you should get something in the mail, so this is more for guys that are deployed or instinctively throw anything from the Taxman's office in the shredder.

Here's the application. https://srcpa.org/dr501m.pdf

[LJ Driver]

I filled out the form and sent the paperwork in last week for this, haven't heard anything yet. I will say that according to how the form is written, it implies that there is a straight knock-off of taxes for any time you spent in OEF/OIF/OND, ie: number of days deployed / 365 x 100 is percent property tax free. Not sure if this is actual end state, but seems that way according to the form, and would be a pretty nice extra few-hundred balloons in the pocket.

[nsplayr]

The way I read it was that for whatever percentage of the year you were deployed, you got to deduct that percentage of your home's value off of your taxes in addition to the $50,000 in homestead exemption. For example, I was deployed 121 days last year, which is 33% of the year. So you take 33% of your home's tax-assessed value, and deduct that from the amount you pay taxes on. So if your house is worth $200K, you already only pay taxes on it like it was worth $150K with the standard homestead deduction, and if you were deployed for 33% of the year, you would only pay taxes on it like it was worth $84,000 (after an additional deduction of $66K i.e. 33% of the original value). Seems like a pretty significant additional deduction for folks who are gone a lot and I know there were plenty of people at HRT gone more than me.

Anyone else get a different interpretation?

Edited June 12, 2011 by nsplayr

[LJ Driver]

Folks,

Has anyone received the same letter that we did last year about this? I have property in Okaloosa County and last year the county sent me the documentation with a suspense of only a few weeks - namely because the law was passed and enacted at that time. This year I haven't recieved anything yet, just curious if anyone else had. It chopped about $500 off my yearly bill, so well worth the paperwork drill getting it together and sending it in.

EDIT:

Found it on their website: https://www.okaloosapa.com/docs/Deployed%20Military%20App%20OCPA%20FM501DM%20051911.pdf

Has a suspense of 1 March, I intend to try it anyway... Good luck to others who choose to do the same. Kind of irritated that they changed the due-date and also didn't bother to send me a notice...

Edited March 11, 2012 by LJ Driver

[nsplayr]

We found out through the exec mafia on base...had about 69 people working on this at the squadron on Feb 29th.