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Growers Asked to Raise Taxes On Selves

Lakeland Ledger – November 19, 2009

LAKELAND | Don’t tax you! Don’t tax me! Tax the guy behind the citrus tree!

That’s the principle behind a state tax to raise money for citrus research. Growers first agreed in 1991 to tax themselves up to 1 cent for each box of citrus they produce to pay for scientific research on improved methods to deal with diseases, pests and other obstacles to growing Florida’s signature crop.

Now growers are being asked in a statewide referendum to raise the cap on the research tax to 3 cents for additional money in the fight against citrus greening. The fatal bacterial disease threatens to wipe out the state’s groves if scientists can’t find better ways to control it.

The tax has raised from $1 million to $2 million a year. The new tax could raise more than $5 million annually.

“It’s clear our industry can’t continue without getting our arms around it,” said Steve Caruso, the CEO at Florida’s Natural Growers, the Lake Wales citrus processor and growers’ cooperative. “Greening has still got us going down to unacceptable levels of fruit production.”

Caruso and other supporters of increasing the research tax agreed its passage depends upon whether financially struggling growers believe it will be “tax neutral” – not raising their total tax bill.

“That would be a big bump in the road,” said Charles Lucas, the CEO of Consolidated Citrus LP based in Fort Myers, the state’s biggest grower with more than 50,000 acres. “The concern is, with earnings being so low, this would be an additional tax on what we already pay.”

Consolidated is “leaning for” supporting the new research tax, he said.

Consolidated and other large growers will have an oversized voice in the referendum. Approval requires at least 65 percent of growers who vote and they must represent at least 51 percent of total acreage among the voters.

The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services mailed ballots to thousands of growers Monday. The ballots must be postmarked by Dec. 4 and received no later than Dec. 9.

The research tax is one of several “box taxes” commercial growers pay each year. The Florida Department of Citrus levies the biggest one – 24 cents per box on juice oranges, the state’s largest crop, and 35 cents on each grapefruit box.

The Florida Citrus Commission, the department’s governing body, in August passed a resolution pledging to lower its tax rates by an amount equivalent to the research tax.

Lakeland-based Florida Citrus Mutual, the state’s largest growers’ representative, had asked for the resolution to assure its members on the tax neutrality issue.

Citrus Commissioner Michael Carrere, a vice president at Lykes Bros. Inc. in Tampa, the state’s second largest grower, said his company would support the higher tax.

“I don’t think we have a choice right now, and I think most growers recognize that,” he said.

Carrere agreed the tax neutrality issue will play a key role in the votes. He re-affirmed his vote for the August resolution but noted it cannot bind future commission votes on taxes.

“Everybody knows the commission ultimately answers to the Florida citrus grower,” said Andrew Meadows, a Citrus Mutual spokesman. “For a subsequent commission not to honor that pledge would be a big leap.”

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