"You’re asking senior citizens and people with disabilities to give up their eyeglasses and their hearing aids, and their care for their feet."
Florida legislators may be using the budget to cut government and services, but in the Senate they are also advancing proposals to deliver millions in corporate tax breaks to a select number of businesses — including a $31.6 million break to allow qualifying businesses to write off 100% of the cost of all business meals from their state income taxes.
Dubbed the “three martini lunch” tax deduction by critics when it was passed by Congress last year, it refers to the practice of taking long leisurely business lunches and deducting them on tax returns as a business expense. The idea was seen as a way to revive the ailing restaurant industry, battered by the pandemic, but critics say allowing companies to write off Florida taxes for the same meal that gets a federal tax break is a kind of double dipping the state can’t afford.
Read more at the Miami Herald