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Governor Rick Scott is proposing total of $180 million tax cuts for Florida families as part of his budget recommendation for 2018 to 2019. Since 2010, Gov. Scott reduced taxes more than 75 times, saving Floridians over $7.5 billion. His current proposal aims to help families prepare for the school year and hurricane season. In a statement, the governor said he will fight for his proposal to cut taxes for families this upcoming legislative session. He emphasized that the $180 million tax cut is “especially important” after the devastation from Hurricane Irma. According to Gov. Scott, his administration has been working relentlessly to turnaround Florida’s economy over the past seven years. As a result, the State’s unemployment rate declined to 3.8%. Businesses created more than 1.3 million private sector jobs. Additionally, he stated that Florida also invested significantly in education, transportation, and the environment. The governor said his administration made those accomplishments while cutting taxes. Gov. Scott said, “Cutting taxes works and the rest of the nation needs to follow Florida’s lead. I am also fighting to make it harder for politicians to raise taxes in the future. I look forward to working with the Legislature during the upcoming session on these proposals.”

Details of governor’s tax cuts for families

The governor’s tax cut package for Florida families includes sales tax holidays and reduction in driver’s license fees. The sales tax holidays will help Florida families a total of $88 million. It includes $73 million from a 10-day back-to-school sales tax holiday and $15 million from three one-week disaster preparedness sales tax holidays in May, June, and July. Gov. Scott is proposing to roll back many drivers’ license fees, which were raised in 2009 before he came into office. These include reducing the fee for a renewal of regular driver’s license by over 58% from $48 to $20.  It means total savings of $67 million for Florida families. Additionally, the governor wants to slash the original regular driver’s license fee by more than 43% from $48 to $27. He is also proposing to cut the original commercial driver’s license fee by 10% from $75 to $67. The reductions will result to a total of $20 million in saving for Florida families. Furthermore, Gov. Scott is recommending a reduction in traffic citation fines to save Floridians $4 million. He wants to reinstate the 18% reduction of eligible traffic citation fines that was repealed in 2009.

Reactions from the leaders of Florida legislature

Commenting on the governor’s proposal, Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran (R-Land O’Lakes” said, “Of course, we look forward to partnering with Gov. Scott on his tax cut proposal.” He added that he’s been “working side by side” with the governor and “already cut $10 billion in taxes over seven years.”