Neighbors William Kulik and Bill Watson unwittingly embody an issue at the crux of a tax protest that drew hundreds to a Volusia County Council meeting this week and could draw crowds to more budget hearings in the coming weeks.

As many as 30 taxing agencies in Volusia and Flagler are looking to raise taxes by nearly 20 percent or more. Skyrocketing costs for things like fuel, construction and insurance are driving some of the cash grab. Residents are feeling the same pinch, though, and their frustration is feeding the protest, organizers say.

Some of the loudest cries come from homeowners like Kulik, who moved from Virginia a year ago and congratulated himself on his cleverness in finding a retirement home where there's no state income tax.

Kulik quickly came up to speed on the subtleties of Florida's homestead exemption and a constitutional amendment that caps property assessment increases from year to year at no more than 3 percent for those with the exemption.

For homeowners like Watson -- who's been in his place about a decade -- that means ever-growing tax savings. He could actually wind up saving $40 on his tax bill this year.

But for those without the homestead exemption's cap -- businesses and anyone who moves to a new house -- the increases are steep. Volusia and Flagler taxing bodies are taking some $135 million more than they got last year, and Volusia County Property Appraiser Morgan Gilreath says 96 percent of the additional revenues are paid by non-capped property owners.

Gilreath predicts a day will come -- if it hasn't already -- when fewer people will move or relocate their businesses to Florida because of the growing property tax inequities. For years, he says, property taxes have been growing at a rate far greater than the economy.

"It's a mistake to think it was just business people (objecting to property taxes)," Gilreath said of this week's protest. "I think it was an expression of the awakening of the public to what's going on -- and their frustration with what's going on."

And he has allies in the real estate agents, title agents, mortgage brokers and others who came together in the last two months to form "Volusia Tax Reform," the group that descended on the County Council with more than four busloads of protesters.

While there's little they can do to change Florida's constitution, they're lobbying local governments to hold the line against burgeoning tax revenues. Bill Roe, president of Ocean Properties & Management in New Smyrna Beach and one of the group's organizers, said the group has about 10,000 signed petitions saying it "is absolutely necessary" for all local governments to hold their revenues at the same rate and "keep our local economy from faltering."

"We're all in the same boat," said Harold Young, a title agent, mortgage broker and real estate investor from Port Orange who helped organize the group. "We've seen our business decline dramatically 50 or 60 percent off of what normal business would do."

Noting Volusia County is one of the few taxing bodies to propose a tax rate that's lower than the one used last year, County Chairman Frank Bruno says the fear of lost income is driving much of the protest.

"They've been making huge commissions and now things have just tightened up," Bruno said. "They bought a lot of investment properties and they can't unload them, and they're stuck paying the taxes at the high rate coming along."

So why the big difference? Bill Watson has lived in his house about a decade, enjoying the protections of a law that caps at 3 percent the amount property assessments can go up in any year. William Kulik bought his house a year ago. If the same cap applied to his house, Kulik would be looking at a tax bill of about $2,810 -- almost half of what he now expects to pay.

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