Every year, elected officials in cities, towns and villages throughout Florida proclaim they’re holding the line on taxes. Sometimes they even brag that they’re cutting the tax rate.

People often wonder why their tax bills keep going up. The question has particular resonance this year, as Gov. Ron DeSantis pushes a proposal to slash property taxes or eliminate them altogether.

How it works

The ultra-simplified version of the answer starts with this: Your bill is determined by the taxable value of your piece of property multiplied by the tax rate.

The taxable value is based on the market value of the property, determined each year by the county property appraiser’s office. This value is lowered for owner-occupied homes by homestead exemptions — which reduced a home’s taxable value by up to $50,000 — and limits on increases imposed by Florida’s Save Our Homes program.

The basic system works like this: A home or business with a taxable value of $300,000 that is charged a tax rate of $5 for every $1,000 of value would pay $1,500. That represents the taxable value multiplied by the tax rate.

Many governments, including water management districts, health or hospital districts and children’s services councils charge tax rates.

Equation variables

The system allows local government leaders to proclaim — as many do every year — that they’ve held the line on taxes if they keep the tax rate the same. But even if the tax rate stays the same, you can end up with a higher tax bill if property values are increasing, as they have tended to do consistently in Central Florida in recent years.

Higher property values don’t automatically mean higher taxes. That’s entirely up to local governments, which set the tax rate.

Governments can adjust the tax rate to what’s called the rollback level, which is the level that would keep overall government revenues that same as the previous year. The lower, “rollback” rate times the higher property value would bring in the same amount of money. But that means, as local governments often argue, they wouldn’t have money to keep up with inflation and population growth.

The state Truth In Millage Act sets requirements for governments that levy taxes to spell out tax rates and budget hearing notices — in advertisements and TRIM notices mailed to property owners. Governments that plan to take in more money from taxes must advertise a “proposed tax increase.”

Rate cut, tax increase

Lake County provides an illustration. The County Commission cut the tax rate in September for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, with commissioners lowering it by about a penny per $1,000 in taxable value.

The commission set a tax rate of $5.0254, down from the previous year’s $5.0364.

Here’s how the math worked out:

— The owner of a home with a taxable value of $300,000, after subtracting the homestead exemption, would have paid $1,510.92 in county government taxes last year.

— Save Our Homes would have allowed the taxable value of that property to increase to $308,700. (Under Save Our Homes, homesteaded values can increase 3% a year or the rate of inflation, whichever is less. The cap this year was 2.9%.)

— Also, starting this year, the first $25,000 of the homestead exemption (separate from Save Our Homes) is indexed for inflation, bringing it to $25,722, according to the state Department of Revenue. So that’s $722 off the taxable value, bringing it to $307,978.

— Multiplying the higher taxable value of the home by the slightly lower rate translates into a county tax bill of $1,547.71.

— So, in the end, taxes on that piece of property would go up by $36.79 for the year, even though the rate was cut.

Lake was the only Central Florida county to drop its tax rate. Orange and Osceola maintained their rates, while Seminole hiked its 10% to $5.38 per $1,000. Taxpayers in all four counties should expect higher property tax bills due to rising property values.

Widespread confusion

The system is opaque to many people. At a hearing of the House Select Committee on Property Taxes, one of its members, state Rep. Ryan Chamberlin, R-Belleview, said he’s only recently started to understand.

“We have found out on this committee just in the last couple days — I found out throughout the summer — millage rates can go down and property taxes can go way up in the same time frame. I also found out that there’s something called a rollback that we can do,” Chamberlin said.

Sun Sentinel reporter Rafael Olmeda contributed to this report.

Political writer Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.