ATLANTA — A Republican House proposal to eliminate homeowner property taxes will face stiff opposition if it makes it to the state Senate, where Democratic leadership labeled it “draconian” and “unserious.”
Georgia’s property tax is essential, Sen. Harold Jones II, D-Augusta, said Thursday.
“It funds your schools and it funds your police,” said Jones, the Senate minority leader. “And that’s exactly what you would be defunding, quite frankly, if you actually went for either one of these proposals.”
The other proposal he was referring to was by Republican leaders of his own chamber to eliminate the state income tax.
Republicans would not necessarily need support from Democrats to change the income tax, but an overhaul of the property tax would require an amendment of the state constitution.
To pass the General Assembly, a constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote of approval from both the House and Senate. Republicans do not have a two-thirds majority in either chamber, so Democrats would have a say in the outcome.
House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, unveiled the broad strokes of his chamber’s plan Wednesday, with a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment to gradually reduce and then eliminate the property tax on the primary residence of homeowners. He said the rapid rise in home values was driving an “unsustainable” increase in property tax bills.
The resolution requires companion legislation that gets into the details of how the tax break would work.
On Thursday, Rep. Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire, the architect of the plan, filed some of that companion legislation.
House Bill 1116 would gradually increase the tax break on primary residences, starting with a $10,000 maximum exemption off the taxable value through 2028, up from the current $2,000.
Blackmon said Wednesday that jurisdictions would be allowed to use up to 2 pennies of local sales tax revenue to make up for their lost property tax revenue, though the total sales tax rate that jurisdictions would be allowed to levy would remain at 5%.
Factories, offices, stores, apartments, second homes and other non-primary residences would still be subject to the traditional property tax.
But HB 1116 would require that cities, counties and school districts reduce their property tax rate to cap annual revenue growth at 3%. And it would require that these jurisdictions roll back their property tax rate if the amount of their sales tax revenue dedicated to offsetting the revenue lost to the homeowner property tax break were to exceed the cost of that tax break.
Jones said the increase in sales taxes needed to pay for the homeowner tax break would raise costs for families when they go shopping. And he said the tax break would also force local service cuts.
“Any idea of getting rid of the property tax is just draconian,” he said.
Jones also said the two-thirds vote requirement was a tough hurdle. “I think that’s going to be a hard one to get over,” he said. “I hope it will be a hard one to get over.”