On May 7, Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would veto a plan to lower the state sales tax because he thought it would hurt his efforts to lower property taxes.

“Any ‘Florida last’ tax package is going to fail as soon as it gets here,” he told reporters at a Tampa event. It’s not going to be hard for us to help you with your property taxes just so we can help Canadian tourists a little. You can bet that won’t happen.

The threat of a veto could change what was called a “framework” for a budget deal that leaders in the House and Senate agreed to. They were unable to come to an agreement during the 60-day regular session that finished on May 2. Lawmakers will be back in Tallahassee on May 12 to work out the specifics of a budget that will likely be worth $115 billion.

The plan does, however, include a $1.6 billion cut to the state sales tax, which will bring it down from 6% to 5.75 %. The whole package of tax cuts would cost $2.8 billion, but what it will include is still unknown.

Speaker of the House Daniel Perez, R-Miami, and DeSantis have been fighting since the beginning of the year over a number of issues, such as tax cuts. At first, Perez wanted to cut the sales tax by 0.75%, which would have saved people about $5 billion. But DeSantis has pressed on cutting the property tax instead.

In response to what DeSantis said, Perez said that lawmakers could lower the property and sales taxes and disagreed with how the Governor put the problem.

“I’m worried about how lost the governor seems to be.” He wants to stop the biggest tax cut in state history, and he says it’s because it makes it harder to cut local property taxes. “That’s strange,” Perez said. “We can lower the sales tax by the most in our country’s history and put a property tax initiative on the 2026 ballot.” The question is not whether we can do both, but whether we will.

After bringing up the idea of getting rid of all property taxes without a clear plan, DeSantis announced on March 31 at a meeting with Florida Realtors in Orlando that he would give homestead property owners up to $1,000.

The state would pay the part of property taxes that goes to K–12 public schools under that plan. They would do this by replacing the tax money with state money and giving homestead owners a refund.

Homeowners would get the rebate later this year, which is faster than the usual way for property tax cuts to happen, which is for the Legislature to put a measure on the ballot in 2026, and if voters accept, homeowners would see the cuts in 2027.

That plan wasn’t in either the House or the Senate’s budget, and it doesn’t look like it will be brought up in next week’s talks between the two houses.

In his speech, Perez said this about the plan: “I give the governor credit for starting this debate, but he’s had months to produce an actual plan to lower property tax rates, and we’re still waiting.” He said this about a plan that Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom would back. Tax cuts can’t come from a made-up plan.

“The Governor’s team would like to respond that they do have a plan: they will send $1,000 checks from the state treasury as a fake property tax refund. To be fair, it fits with what the governor has done in the past. He likes these “free” money offers in the style of Newsom. It’s not even close to an answer to give away $1,000 checks in a way that doesn’t lower property taxes, Perez said.

The House came up with an alternative plan to use tourist development taxes to make up for a drop in property taxes next year. However, the Senate probably won’t agree with that plan because it gets rid of tourist development councils, which the tourism industry says are important to keep people coming to the state.