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Florida businesses will now see huge relief on their unemployment taxes. Today Governor Rick Scott received legislation to cut the increase nearly in half. In January, the tax increased from 72 dollars an employee to 172. Statewide the increase would have cost Florida businesses more than 800 million dollars. State Representative Will Weatherford worked with the Florida Chamber of Commerce to cut the increase by 550 million dollars over two years.

“To me, in this environment to allow an 800 million dollar tax increase on our state and on our citizens and on our businesses would have been completely going in the wrong direction and so we had to find a way to solve that problem,” said Weatherford.

The tax is increasing because the state borrowed 2.6 billion dollars from the federal government to pay unemployment claims at the height of the recession. Now the bill has come due with interest.