When was the state’s 1st sales tax holiday?

Florida legislators are preparing a bill to once again enact the Disaster Preparedness Tax Free Holiday ahead of the upcoming hurricane season.

If the bill, SB 734, passes, it will be the ninth time Florida has temporarily done away with the state sales tax for disaster supplies.

Florida’s sales tax makes up a large portion of state revenue, with receipts accounting for approximately 79% of general revenue in fiscal year 2019 - 2020, according to the state Legislature.

So, what event in the state’s history caused legislators to temporarily suspend a major source of state income?

The 2004 Atlantic Hurricane Season; also known as the time Florida got walloped by four hurricanes.

Floridians took shelter from hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne, which combined for more than $20 billion in damage.

As a result of so many affected residents, then Gov. Jeb Bush signed the first hurricane supply tax-free holiday to encourage Floridians to prepare, should another hurricane hit the state, said Bethany Wester, a spokeswoman at the Florida Department of Revenue. The idea to do so was originally floated by State Rep. Ron L. Greenstein, D-Coconut Creek, according to a Miami Herald 2005 report. The 12-day 6% tax break cost Florida $7.9 million. The result of the holiday and its impact on Floridians’ preparedness is a bit of a mixed bag.

Disaster supply sales on the first day of the holiday were met with a huge demand; especially items such as batteries, extension cords and generators sparking a huge run within the first few hours of stores opening, according to media coverage in 2005. One story from the Fort Myers News-Press story shows a Southwest Florida Home Depot sold 200 generators by the end of the morning, and only had six left by 1 p.m. In Central Florida, shoppers purchased every generator available at the Tractor Supply Co. store in Eustis an hour after the store opened, according to a 2005 Orlando Sentinel article. Lowe’s Home Improvement sold a total of 28,000 generators in

Florida, over the 12-day period, the Tampa Tribune reported. The rush was so quick, some stores couldn't promise they would have enough generators to meet demand before the holiday ended.

Whether the incentive helped is hard to measure, but that same year Florida would be challenged by the destruction of Hurricane Wilma.

Wilma was a Category 3 storm when it cut through South Florida from the lower west coast. It was responsible for the largest disruption to Florida's electrical service ever observed. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports up to 98% of South Florida lost electricity. Florida Power and Light reported outages in 42 Florida counties. Floridians also suffered through a combination of infrastructure damage, flooding, as well as damage to sugar cane and citrus crops. The storm cost the state $21 billion in damages.

Experts said in the first week of recovery the response to Wilma included more ice, food and water shipped into South Florida than was distributed after all of the 2004 storms.

Many residents and officials of South Florida felt blindsided and unprepared by the sheer power of Wilma — it was a sentiment that baffled forecasters who had correctly estimated Wilma's destruction a week ahead of landfall, according to a 2005 report by Florida Today. Although, experts speculate this may have had more to do with how messaging was communicated to Floridians.

Craig Fugate, the then state director of emergency management, said the state would have a new focus on public awareness and preparation moving forward.

“We lost our culture of preparedness,” Fugate said. “We had it in the '50s and '60s. Solutions will not be a government program. It's got to be a community-based solution.”

One of the ways the state proposed to rescue a preparedness mentality was by once again signing into law the hurricane-preparation goods, sales-tax holiday for the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season and again in 2007.

However the holiday would not become a calendar event.

“The sales tax holiday expires every year, and the Legislature may or may not include the sales tax holiday in the laws they pass each year,” Wester said.

After three years, no tax-free holiday was passed in Florida in 2008 as the country entered recession. The bill wouldn't be signed again until 2014. After another lull, legislators signed the bill again in 2017, the same year Hurricane Irma made landfall. Since then, Florida has enacted the tax holiday consistently every year through 2020. It was in 2017 that the bill received its modern name: Disaster Preparedness Sales Tax Holiday.

Last year, Gov. DeSantis signed into law a one-week-long tax holiday, proposed to save Floridians $5.6 million. This year the bill is still in appropriations and must be voted on and signed off by DeSantis. The 2021 bill would have the holiday stretch on for 17 days and is set to cover items needed during disasters including generators priced at $750 or less. If the bill passes, it would begin May 28 and last until June 13. Though estimates vary on how much money the proposed bill would save Floridians, one projection shows the sales tax holiday would reduce the state's general revenue fund receipts by $20 million.

Developments on the bill are expected to arrive as the start of hurricane season creeps closer.