Rep. Randy Nix Weekly Capitol Update

March 8, 2008 - While a lot happened in Atlanta this week, the big issue and the big news was TAXES. On Wednesday, March 5, the Georgia House of Representatives had the chance to vote to eliminate the dreaded “birthday tax”-the tax you must pay on your personal automobiles which is due every year on your birthday, and put an end to out-of-control growth of property taxes on homesteads by freezing assessments at 2008 levels and limiting the annual increase to no more than 2%. On basically a party line vote, with Republicans voting for the legislation and Democrats voting against it, the measure fell 10 votes short of the 120 votes needed to put it on the ballot in November so you could vote on it. I proudly voted for it and believe that if it were place on a ballot, you would overwhelmingly approve it. The defeat of this Resolution, SR796, denied you the right to vote for meaningful tax reforms.

This legislation started out as the Speaker’s GREAT Plan (Georgia Repeals Every Ad valorem Tax) where property taxes would be repealed and replace with expanded sales taxes (groceries included) and taxes on services like haircuts, attorney fees, lawn services, etc. Later, the plan was changed to only repeal the property taxes for education and replace them with the expanded sales taxes. Along with many other Representatives, I went to the Speaker and told him we could not support this due to the unpredictability of the sales tax system that would have to be created to support it. After hearing all of the concerns, the Speaker completely took education off the table and rather than a tax shift, proposed a true tax cut which would have benefited every Georgian who licenses an automobile in the state-the c omplete elimination of the automobile tax. I have talked with two people today who just had birthdays and paid $800 and $900 who said they would have been delighted to see this tax eliminated. As an added benefit, there was a proposal in place to fund the Trauma Care Network which is urgently needed in the state.

As the final legislation was being crafted, at the urging of local officials, I was able to get language placed in the bill to protect cities like LaGrange who have no property tax so that if they lost a major industry and could no longer fund government with utility revenues, they would have an option to establish a property tax. Also, a controversial provision which would have made it possible to change tax laws by a simple majority rather that a 2/3 vote of the legislature was completely pulled from the legislation.

This attempt at tax-reform went from a very aggressive and almost radical proposal to a very tax-payer friendly proposal that would both save taxpayers money and give them assurances that they would not be taxed out of their homes. I think letting taxpayers keep more of their hard earned money and letting them be more secure in their homes are good things and I intend to continue to work towards these ends.