Politics
Click, stream, talk, pay — Florida’s communications tax reality
When Florida residents stream their favorite music, watch streaming platforms or call their loved ones, they often don’t realize they are paying one of the highest communications taxes in the country.
The Communications Services Tax (CST) was originally established to fund the maintenance of communications infrastructure, such as telephone poles and cable lines.
However, as technology evolved beyond the early 2000s, the CST expanded to cover a range of services far beyond its original intent.
The CST comprises a state rate of 7.44% and a local CST that varies dramatically across Florida’s 481 jurisdictions. These local rates range from as low as 0.3% in Lake Buena Vista to as high as 7.6% in Sanford. Combined, Floridians can pay up to 15% per service, more than double the state’s 6% sales tax.
The current system gives municipal governments flexibility to increase their local rates to recoup lost revenue. While this protects local operating budgets, it has led to a patchwork of inconsistent and steadily rising taxes that disproportionately impact consumers. In the last five years, local jurisdictions have collectively increased their CST rates 134 times.
In one extreme case, Jupiter Inlet Colony hiked its CST rate by 5.22% in a single year.
In response to rising rates, the Florida legislature enacted a moratorium in 2023 to temporarily halt local CST rate increases until January 2026. With this deadline approaching, lawmakers are now considering extending the freeze until 2031, ensuring that Florida residents don’t face unexpected hikes in their communications bills.
Beyond protecting consumers, the bill also provides greater stability for businesses by simplifying compliance with complicated local tax rates. This would allow communications providers to focus on infrastructure improvements and customer service rather than managing fluctuating tax obligations.
The proposed legislation would also establish a working group to evaluate the CST and recommend changes. If managed effectively, this group could provide needed transparency about how CST revenue is collected and spent. Notably, this is not the first time a CST working group has convened.
Previous iterations of the group, starting in 2013, unanimously recommended abolishing the CST and collecting revenues under the existing sales tax, which is not currently levied on communications services.
Such a shift would simplify Florida’s tax code, enhance transparency, ease administrative burdens, and potentially reduce consumer costs statewide.
A national study indicated that the average household could save approximately $125.76 annually if taxes on communications services were aligned with the sales tax rate.
However, because this approach involved increasing the state sales tax from 6% to 6.36%, momentum for comprehensive reform stalled.
Even if major reforms prove politically challenging, the working group has an opportunity to improve the CST significantly. A key first step is increasing the transparency of CST spending at the local level.
Currently, detailed public accounting of CST expenditures is lacking, and local governments aren’t required to reinvest revenue in communications infrastructure.
At least a portion of CST revenues should be directed toward maintaining and enhancing Florida’s digital infrastructure, such as inspecting public rights of way after broadband fiber deployment or ensuring timely permit processing for essential communications projects.
Instead, these funds flow into general budgets with no specific accountability for how they’re spent. Additionally, the group should clarify the definition of taxable communications services to reduce inconsistencies. Florida’s ambiguous definition has resulted in uneven enforcement, creating confusion for consumers and businesses alike.
For instance, video streaming services Hulu and Amazon have long collected the CST, but Netflix only began collecting it last February.
As Florida’s Communications Services Tax continues to burden residents, extending the moratorium and introducing targeted reforms presents the most viable path forward. The moratorium provides immediate relief, protecting Floridians from further financial strain and offering businesses needed stability. Meanwhile, the working group can focus on developing lasting improvements for the CST.
Lawmakers must carefully review the group’s recommendations and consult with all stakeholders to prevent unintended consequences. By thoughtfully revisiting and refining the CST framework, Florida can craft a fairer, simpler tax structure that aligns with modern technology use and genuinely serves the public interest.
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Turner Loesel is a policy analyst in the Center for Technology and Innovation at The James Madison Institute.
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Jameis Winston is ready to take a bite out of the Big Apple. And maybe eat some wins for the New York Giants, too.
The 31-year-old quarterback agreed to terms with the Giants on a two-year, $8 million contract, a person familiar with the deal told The Associated Press on Friday night.
Winston joins Tommy DeVito as the only quarterbacks on the Giants’ roster. New York has been in the market in free agency for a veteran, with Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson and Joe Flacco also mentioned as possible targets.
The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the team didn’t announce the deal. Fox Sports first reported that Winston was joining the Giants, adding that the deal could be for as much as $16 million with incentives.
“Start spreading the neWs,” Winston wrote on X, a play on his infamous “Eat a W” pregame speech with Tampa Bay in 2017. He added an apple emoji while appearing to confirm his Big Apple welcome.
Winston was the No. 1 overall pick by Tampa Bay in the 2015 draft out of Florida State. He got off to a solid start to his NFL career, finishing second in the AP Offensive Rookie of the Year voting behind Rams running back Todd Gurley, and surpassed 4,000 yards passing in each of his first two seasons. But he also struggled with his consistency and interceptions in key moments became an issue.
Winston threw for a league-leading 5,109 yards and had 33 touchdowns in 2019, but also led the NFL with a career-worst 30 interceptions in his last season as the Buccaneers’ starter. He signed with the Saints in 2020 to be Drew Brees’ backup and then re-signed the following offseason the day after Brees announced his retirement.
He started seven games in 2021 before a torn ACL ended his season. A back injury limited him the following season as he became the backup to Andy Dalton. Winston again re-signed with the Saints in 2023, serving as Derek Carr’s backup.
Winston has passed for 24,225 yards and 154 touchdowns with 111 interceptions in 10 NFL seasons.
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Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
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With massive job cuts, the National Weather Service is eliminating or reducing vital weather balloon launches in eight northern locations, which meteorologists and former agency leaders said will degrade the accuracy of forecasts just as severe weather season kicks in.
The normally twice-daily launches of weather balloons in about 100 locations provide information that forecasters and computer models use to figure out what the weather will be and how dangerous it can get, so cutting back is a mistake, said eight different scientists, meteorologists and former top officials at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — the weather service’s parent agency.
The balloons soar 100,000 feet in the air with sensors called radiosondes hanging about 20 feet below them that measure temperature, dew point, humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction.
“The thing about weather balloons is that they give you information you can’t get any other way,” said D. James Baker, a former NOAA chief during the Clinton administration. He had to cut spending in the agency during his tenure but he said he refused to cut observations such as weather balloons. “It’s an absolutely essential piece of the forecasting system.”
University of Oklahoma environment professor Renee McPherson said, “This frankly is just dangerous.”
“Bad,” Ryan Maue, who was NOAA’s chief scientist at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term, wrote in an email. “We should not degrade our weather system by skipping balloon launches. Not only is this embarrassing for NOAA, the cessation of weather balloon launches will worsen America’s weather forecasts.”
Launches will be eliminated in Omaha, Nebraska, and Rapid City, South Dakota, “due to a lack of Weather Forecast Office (WFO) staffing,” the weather service said in a notice issued late Thursday. It also is cutting from twice daily to once daily launches in Aberdeen, South Dakota; Grand Junction, Colorado; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Gaylord, Michigan; North Platte, Nebraska and Riverton, Wyoming.”
The Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency fired hundreds, likely more than 1,000, NOAA workers earlier this year. The government then sent out letters telling probationary employees let go that they will get paid, but should not report to work.
Earlier this month, the agency had announced weather balloon cuts in Albany, New York and Gray, Maine, and in late February, it ended launches in Kotzebue, Alaska. That makes 11 announced sites with reduced or eliminated balloon observations, or about one out of nine launch locations which include part of the Pacific and Caribbean.
Among regularly reporting weather stations, NOAA had averaged about only one outage of balloon launches a day from 2021 to 2024, according to an Associated Press analysis of launch data.
Meteorologists Jeff Masters and Tomer Burg calculate that 14 of 83 U.S. balloon sites, or 17%, are doing partial or no launches. That includes two stations that aren’t launching because of a helium shortage and a third that is hindered because of coastal erosion.
“The more data we can feed into our weather models, the more accurate our forecasts, but I can’t speculate on the extent of future impacts,” weather service spokesperson Susan Buchanan said in an email.
University at Albany meteorology professor Kristen Corbosiero looked at the map of launches Friday and said “wow, that is an empty area … That’s not great.”
Corbosiero works in the building where the Albany weather service used to go to the roof to launch twice-daily weather balloons. It’s now down to one at night, which she said it is worrisome heading into severe weather season.
“For those of us east of the Rocky Mountains, this is probably the worst time of year,” said Oklahoma’s McPherson. “It’s the time of year that we have some of our largest tornado outbreaks, especially as we move into April and May.”
Former National Weather Service Director Elbert “Joe” Friday said the weather balloons get “the detailed lower atmospheric level of temperature and humidity that can determine whether the atmosphere is going to be hot enough to set off severe storms and how intense they might be.”
Satellites do a good job getting a big picture and ground measurements and radar show what’s happening on the ground, but the weather balloons provide the key middle part of the forecasting puzzle — the atmosphere — where so much weather brews, several meteorologists said.
All of the 10 announced reductions are in the northern part of the United States. That’s about where the jet stream — which is a river of air that moves weather systems across the globe — is this time of year, so not having as many observations is especially problematic, McPherson and Corbosiero said.
Weather balloons are also vital for helping forecast when and where it will rain, said Baker and another former NOAA chief, Rick Spinrad.
The weather agency has been launching balloons regularly since the 1930s. During World War II, weather balloon launches in the Arctic helped America win the air battle over Europe with better forecasts for planes, former weather chief Friday said.
It takes 90 minutes to an hour to fill a weather balloon with helium or hydrogen, get it fitted with a sensor, then ready it for launch making sure the radiosonde doesn’t drag on the ground, said Friday, who recalled launching a balloon in Nome, Alaska with 30 mph winds and windchill of about 30 degrees below zero.
Meteorologists then track the data for a couple hours before the balloon falls back to the ground for a total of about four of five hours work for one person, Friday said.
“It’s kind of fun to do,” Friday said on Friday.
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Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
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