Georgians could be in line for income tax relief

Georgia Rep. Shaw Blackmon

ATLANTA – The General Assembly is considering giving Georgians trying to cope with the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic some tax relief.

Legislation raising the standard deduction allowed state income taxpayers passed unanimously Wednesday in a House Ways and Means subcommittee.

Under House Bill 593, married taxpayers filing jointly would be able to add $1,100 to the state’s standard deduction, which would increase from $6,000 to $7,100. Single taxpayers would be allowed to deduct an additional $800, and married couples filing separately would get an additional deduction of $550.

The state House of Representatives approved a bill last year setting Georgia’s income tax rate at a flat 5.375%. But the Georgia Senate didn’t take up the measure after lawmakers returned to the Gold Dome from a three-month hiatus prompted by COVID-19.

“So much of this was talked about last session,” Ways and Committee Chairman Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire, the bill’s chief sponsor, told members of the subcommittee Wednesday. “This is an opportunity to ease back into giving folks some of that relief. … It hits the most Georgians we could get with a tax relief package.”

Blackmon said the annual fiscal impact of the tax cut on the state’s coffers would be around $150 million at most.

The bill is cosponsored by Rep. Bruce Williamson, R-Monroe, the subcommittee’s chairman; and Reps. Chuck Martin, R-Alpharetta; Ron Stephens, R-Savannah; David Knight, R-Griffin; and Jason Ridley, R-Chatsworth.

The legislation now heads to the full Ways and Means Committee.

Georgia Senate approves bipartisan tax reform study

Georgia Sen. Chuck Hufstetler

ATLANTA – The Georgia Senate unanimously passed bipartisan legislation Wednesday calling for the most thorough review of the state’s tax laws in more than a decade.

The 2021 Special Council on Tax Reform and Fairness for Georgians would be modeled after an advisory council of the same name the General Assembly created in 2010.

That iteration of the council led to tax reforms that eliminated Georgia’s “birthday” tax on motor vehicles, phased out the state sales tax on energy used in manufacturing and expanded an income tax exemption for married couples filing jointly.

“Georgia did something that worked really well back in 2010,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, told his Senate colleagues Wednesday. “It’s time to do that again.”

Under Hufstetler’s bill, the council would include Gov. Brian Kemp, three economists, a fiscal expert chosen by minority Democrats, the 2021 chairman of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, the 2021 director of the state chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, two members appointed by the lieutenant governor and two members appointed by the speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives.

The council will study Georgia’s tax structure during the course of this year and report its findings and recommendations to the speaker and lieutenant governor no later than Jan. 10, 2022.

The Special Joint Committee on Georgia Revenue Structure, a panel Hufstetler’s bill also would create, would then develop the council’s recommendations into one or more bills to be introduced into the House during next year’s legislative session.

Anything that emerges from the joint committee would move directly to the floor of the House for an up-or-down vote with no amendments. The same process then would be followed in the Senate.

The 2010 council expressed interest in a similar up-or-down voting process as a way to prevent its tax reform recommendations from being watered down, but the General Assembly wouldn’t go along. As a result, the final legislation that came out of the council’s work was not as far-reaching as council members intended.

Like the council, the joint committee would guarantee representation to legislative Democrats, including the minority leaders of the House and Senate. Unlike the council, the joint committee would be limited to members of the General Assembly.

Hufstetler said Georgia was ranked as the sixth-best state in the nation in which to do business by Site Selection magazine at the time lawmakers created the council. Since then, Georgia has improved to the point that the state’s business climate has been No.-1 on the magazine’s list for eight years running.

“This is an attempt to replicate what we did 11 years ago,” Hufstetler said. “Are we going to stand still and let others pass us, or are we going to be more economically competitive?”

Senate Bill 148 now heads to the House of Representative.

Ban on defunding police in Georgia clears state House

State Rep. Houston Gaines, R-Athens, talks about his bill to ban defunding police after a favorable House vote on Feb. 24, 2021. (Photo by Beau Evans)

A bill aimed at preventing Georgia city and county governments from making deep cuts in the budgets of their local police agencies passed in the Georgia House of Representatives on Wednesday.

Sponsored by state Rep. Houston Gaines, R-Athens, the bill would limit local governments from reducing funds for police by more than 5% over a 10-year span. It includes exemptions for smaller jurisdictions and for spending on equipment purchases.

The bill passed 101-69 nearly along party lines, with three Democrats voting in favor. It now heads to the state Senate.

Speaking from the House floor on Wednesday, Gaines called policies to reduce funding for police a “radical idea” that would put police officers in danger and slow response times for emergencies. 

“This legislation sends a strong message that we support our law enforcement officers and we will never defund police here in Georgia,” Gaines said. “When we have local governments that are out of control and putting lives at risk, we have to step in.”

Gaines also highlighted recent failed attempts by some Athens and Atlanta elected officials to slice millions of dollars from their police budgets amid protests over police brutality and racial injustice that swept across Georgia and the country last summer.

Critics called the funding restrictions a power grab by the state over local governments and argued it would stall efforts to fund other areas like mental health, housing and education that aim to keep people from landing in jail.

“The efforts to transfer funding from police departments is about addressing the root causes we are desperate to address,” said state Rep. Bee Nguyen, D-Atlanta. “This bill would shut down the necessary discourse leaders are having with their communities.”

Opposition to the bill also came from the Georgia Municipal Association and the Association County Commissioners of Georgia (ACCG), which represent city and county governments and argued police funding should be left to local officials.

Gaines’ bill comes after last summer’s protests following the high-profile killings of Black men by police officers, including the deaths of George Floyd in Minnesota and Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta.

Property destruction and violence at some of those protests sparked a backlash from conservative leaders over a push by some progressive officials to curb police funding, dubbed “defund the police.” The subject took center stage as an issue for both political parties in the 2020 election cycle.

Several Republican state lawmakers traced the need for the bill directly to those protests, saying police funding decisions have been politicized as a result.

“It is as much an answer to the politicization of an issue that has been made over the past few years,” said Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell. “There’s one place you don’t need to defund and that’s public safety.”

Democratic lawmakers dismissed that way of framing the bill, arguing its intent instead is to let state officials pry into local affairs and ignore calls for more community-oriented policing in predominantly minority neighborhoods.

“This bill does absolutely nothing to increase or protect public safety,” said Rep. Renitta Shannon, D-Decatur. “There are better ways for the money to be spent and let us figure that out in our communities.”

Georgia Republicans have brought legislation in recent weeks to ease probation hardships for released offenders. Democratic lawmakers are pushing broad changes to arrest tactics like no-knock warrants, use-of-force training and civilian oversight of officer-involved shooting reviews. 

A separate measure moving in the House to overhaul Georgia’s citizen’s arrest law has drawn bipartisan support, marking the major criminal-justice reform bill most likely to pass this year.

That bill would repeal state law allowing private citizens to detain someone who commits a crime in their presence or during an escape attempt. It would also let owners and employees in businesses detain those believed to have committed a crime on their property, so long as they’re handed over to local authorities within an hour.

Gaines’ bill also joins a handful of other measures critics have slammed as state overreach into local decisions, including a bill to block locals from banning certain energy sources that passed out of the House on Monday.

Standard time measure clears state Senate

Georgia Sen. Ben Watson

ATLANTA – The Georgia Senate passed legislation Wednesday that would put the Peach State on standard time all year.

The bill, which senators approved 46-7, would do away with switching back and forth twice a year between standard and daylight time, a system studies have shown disrupts sleep patterns.

Interfering with sleep during the two weeks following time changes every March and November impacts Georgians’ health and causes mood swings, said Sen. Ben Watson, R-Savannah, the bill’s chief sponsor.

“There’s a significantly higher percentage of heart attacks during the spring-forward time,” he said. “We have grumpy judges due to sleep deprivation giving harsher sentences.”

While Watson’s bill would move Georgia to standard time all year, it also calls for the state to move to daylight saving time if and when Congress allows states to make that switch. Current federal law permits states to go on standard time but not daylight saving time.

Watson said surrounding states including Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee are considering similar legislation.

Sen. Kim Jackson, D-Stone Mountain, questioned the wisdom of Georgia acting now rather than waiting for Congress to let states switch to daylight time permanently. She said businesses including restaurants and concert venues prefer daylight time because it allows additional evening daylight hours.

“People like having more evening light,” Jackson said.

But Watson said observing daylight time during the winter would lead to dark mornings. The sun wouldn’t come up until almost 8:30 a.m. in December, prompting concerns for the safety of children going to school, he said.

Senate Bill 100 is cosponsored by Senate President Pro Tempore Butch Miller, R-Gainesville; Senate Majority Leader Mike Dugan, R-Carrollton; Republican Sens. John Kennedy of Macon and Dean Burke of Bainbridge; and Democratic Sen. Michelle Au of Johns Creek.

The bill now moves to the Georgia House of Representatives.

‘Hidden Predator’ bill for child sex-abuse victims to sue in Georgia advances

Legislation to extend the statute of limitations for Georgians who were sexually abused as children to sue their abusers years later as adults advanced in the state House of Representatives on Tuesday.

Sponsored by Georgia Rep. Heath Clark, R-Warner Robins, the bill would extend the deadline for victims to bring suits against their childhood abusers to age 52, a steep increase from age 23 under current state law.

The bill would let victims sue their alleged abusers up to a year after realizing that past abuse has led to present-day trauma. Research shows adults often tend to recognize the impacts of childhood sex abuse decades after it happened.

Controversially, the bill would also give victims a four-year window to sue public and private organizations like the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America for harboring predators on staff who abused them as children.

Under the bill, which passed the House Judiciary Committee unanimously, victims would have to prove with “clear and convincing” evidence those organizations both knew about the abuse and let it happen under their watch.

Lawsuits could only be brought if the abuse happened since July 1, 1973, marking the year in Georgia law when organizations were first required to report abuse allegations among staff.

Trial attorneys have warned opening the lawsuit window for victims up to decades after their abuse could open a floodgate of litigation in Georgia, noting hundreds of suits were filed in New York shortly after that state passed a similar statute-of-limitations extension in 2019.

Representatives from the Boy Scouts and Catholic Church, which have both been rocked by child sex-abuse scandals in recent years, also previously opposed the bill on grounds that litigation could expose their organizations to huge legal fees.

Clark’s bill now heads to the full House for a vote. It resembles a statute-of-limitations measure he filed on childhood sexual abuse that stalled in last year’s legislative session, which was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.