CS/HB 7097 (Ways and Means) is the House “tax package” for the 2020 Session and includes several tax reductions and other tax-related modifications. Of note, the bill includes a 0.5 percent rate reduction for both the state communications services tax and the direct-to-home satellite services. The sales tax rate on commercial leases is reduced from 5.5 to 5.4 percent. The bill includes two sales tax holidays: a three-day “back-to-school” holiday and a seven-day “disaster preparedness” holiday. The bill includes a requirement that school capital outlay sales surtaxes approved in the future be proportionately shared with charter schools. The bill restructures the authorized uses of tourist development, convention development and local option food and beverage taxes levied by Miami-Dade County. The bill also expands the allowable uses for tourist development tax revenues to include certain water quality improvement and parks and trails projects. The bill makes multiple changes to property taxes including amending the requirements for hospitals to qualify for a charitable tax exemption and updates the qualifying operations for the deployed servicemember tax exemption. The bill provides for a one-time increase of $8.2 million available for the brownfields tax credit equal to the amount of the current backlog of approved tax credits. The bill provides for an approximately one-third reduction in the aviation fuel tax paid by commercial air carriers. The bill also includes several provisions proposed by the Department of Revenue designed to enhance its administration of state taxes and oversight of property taxation. Additionally, the bill provides for a future sunset of the Charter County and Regional Transportation System Sales Surtax currently levied in Miami-Dade County and a requirement that any future levy of the tax in any eligible county be limited to 20 years in duration. The total local government revenue impact of the bill in fiscal year 2020-21 is -$24.8 million (-$42.5 million recurring). (Hughes)