ATLANTA – Tax relief bills targeting victims of Hurricane Helene cleared both chambers of the General Assembly Tuesday.
The Georgia House unanimously passed legislation exempting from taxation disaster relief payments, grant funds, or crop insurance proceeds provided to victims of the massive storm that struck South, Middle, and eastern Georgia last September.
“This storm was bad. It looked like a tornado hit everywhere,” House Majority Whip James Burchett, R-Waycross, chief sponsor of House Bill 223, told his legislative colleagues. “It’s going to take years to recover.”
“I have never seen the destruction this storm did to our state,” added Rep. Matt Hatchett, R-Dublin. “No one has.”
The bill, which passed 173-0 and now heads to the state Senate, also includes $200 million in income tax credits for timber producers who suffered losses from the hurricane and a sales tax exemption on purchases of building materials used to repair or replace greenhouses, poultry sheds, or livestock barns that lay in the storm’s path.
House Democrats used Tuesday’s debate to criticize the Trump administration for denying Gov. Brian Kemp’s request to extend the deadline for Helene victims to apply for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
“We still need the federal government to show up,” said Rep. Derrick Jackson, D-Tyrone. “We need FEMA to be there for Georgia.”
Hatchett, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, said Tuesday’s measure is one of a series of bills to be taken up during this legislative session that will offer state assistance to Georgians affected by Helene.
“This is just a small portion of what I think we should be doing for the citizens of our state,” he said.
Along those lines, the Senate unanimously passed legislation Tuesday aimed specifically at timber producers. Senate Bill 52 would temporarily exclude from taxation timber sold or harvested from timberland in Georgia counties declared federal disaster areas after the hurricane.
Sen. Russ Goodman, R-Cogdell, the bill’s chief sponsor, said 37% of the state’s 22 million acres of timberland was damaged or destroyed during the storm.
The tax exemption would cover the fourth quarter of last year and all of this year, Goodman said.
“No one is ever going to be made whole from this,” he said. “It’s just our job to do what we can within the power we have to help our fellow Georgians.”
Senate Bill 52 now moves to the state House of Representatives.