Summary — HB 7033 (2025): Taxation
Status: Introduced Feb 20, 2025; passed House as Committee Substitute 4/25/2025 (78–29); died in Appropriations 6/16/2025. Companion measures that enacted related provisions: HB 7031 (Ch. 2025‑208) and CS/SB 738 (Ch. 2025‑181).
Purpose
HB 7033 was a broad tax package that would have reduced statewide sales tax rates, changed uses of tourist development tax (TDT) revenues, revised multiple ad valorem (property) tax rules and administrative procedures, altered various excise and fuel taxes, and made several technical and administrative tax-law updates. The bill’s estimated recurring fiscal impact was a reduction in state and local revenues of approximately $5,486.3 million.
Key provisions and changes
Sales tax rate reductions
- Reduces Florida’s general state sales tax by 0.75 percentage points (from 6.00% to 5.25%).
- Reduces related rates by 0.75 points: commercial rent 2.0% → 1.25%; electricity 4.35% → 3.60%; new mobile homes 3.0% → 2.25%; coin‑operated amusement machines 4.0% → 3.25%.
- Includes technical divisor and implementing changes.
Sales tax exemptions and administrative changes
- Bullion: removes the $500 threshold so all sales of gold, silver, and platinum bullion are fully exempt from sales tax.
- Clarifies aviation fuel remains exempt from sales tax.
- Freight forwarding agents: streamlines certificate procedures, requires surrender of certificate in certain events, protects dealers relying on forwarding agent certificates or the Department’s electronic database, and instructs the Department to list the state and surtax rates as zero for certain certified addresses. These forwarding-agent changes are effective Jan 1, 2026.
Discretionary sales surtaxes
- Allows the levying body (county commission or school board) to reduce or repeal a local discretionary surtax by a two‑thirds vote beginning four years after the surtax was first levied; reductions take effect the following Jan. 1 (or a later Jan. 1 chosen by the board).
Tourist Development Tax (TDT)
- Beginning July 1, 2025, converts TDT receipts from restricted (tourism uses) to general county revenue.
- Beginning 2026, requires counties to apply a credit on property tax bills equal in total to the prior year’s TDT collections (less amounts needed for debt service or contractual obligations). Credits may be allocated proportionately or by taxpayer categories per county ordinance.
- Dissolves tourist development councils on Dec. 31, 2025; tourism promotion agencies may continue only if affirmatively retained by local boards.
Ad valorem (property tax) changes
- Value Adjustment Board (VAB) evidence: property appraisers must provide the evidence they intend to present to VAB petitioners at least 15 days before a hearing; petitioners no longer must submit a written request to receive that evidence.
- Increases maximum VAB filing fee from $15 to $50 per parcel.
- Authorizes certain leased land (and improvements on it) to qualify for ad valorem exemptions; creates an affordable‑housing exemption for certain multifamily projects on state land; removes local governmental opt‑out from an affordable housing exemption.
- Exempts flight simulators leased from governmental units from tangible personal property tax.
- Modifies treatment of RV parks for special assessments and allows municipalities to exempt preschools from special assessments.
Other tax and fiscal provisions
- Repeals the aviation fuel tax and delays effective date for certain natural gas fuel taxes.
- Extends a local communications services tax (CST) rate freeze and requires local governments to prioritize CST revenues for permit processing.
- Adopts the current Internal Revenue Code for state tax conformity and exempts charitable trusts for corporate income tax treatment.
- Lowers pari‑mutuel tax incidence on cardrooms, extends a local economic incentive, and redirects a distribution related to the horse industry.
Who would be affected
- Consumers and businesses statewide would see lower sales tax rates and, for some taxpayers, new or expanded exemptions (e.g., bullion purchasers, buyers shipping to certified freight‑forwarding addresses).
- Counties and property taxpayers would be affected by the repurposing of TDT revenues and the required property‑tax credits.
- Property owners, affordable‑housing developers, taxpayers using VAB appeals, local governments, tourism promotion entities, aviation fuel consumers, and specific industry sectors (parimutuel/cardrooms, freight forwarders, RV park owners, flight simulator lessees) would face policy and tax‑treatment changes.
Procedural/timeline notes
- Some provisions include specific effective dates: forwarding‑agent changes (Jan 1, 2026); TDT general‑revenue conversion (July 1, 2025); VAB evidence timing (immediate in bill text); dissolution of tourist development councils (Dec 31, 2025).
- HB 7033 passed the House but died in the Appropriations Committee. Related provisions were enacted in companion bills (HB 7031 and CS/SB 738).
