Senator Bill Heath
As I have said before, this is a vital issue for all Georgians and a modernized, flatter, fairer, clearer tax reform must be passed during this session to avoid missing an opportunity to restore jobs to Georgians and vitality to our economy.
Today I joined with House and Senate leadership to announce a viable tax reform plan that will be amended into House Bill 388, which is currently in the Special Joint Committee on Georgia Revenue Structure. The legislation will create a flat 4.6 percent individual income tax rate beginning in 2012. This will amount to a 23 percent tax cut from the current top rate of 6 percent.
This is a historic time for tax reform in Georgia. This legislation will save Georgia tax payers $128 million dollars in the first year alone and $200 million over a span of 3 years.
After countless months, weeks, days, and hours, we have finally reached a comprehensive, forward-thinking proposal that will benefit our citizens and our communities. Furthermore, the modernization of our tax code, as presented in this bill, will mean overall tax cuts and substantial economic growth for Georgians.
Additionally, HB 388 will initiate a three year phase out of Georgia's sales tax on energy used by manufacturers throughout the state. Eliminating this sales tax will immediately make our traditional manufacturing industries more competitive as the state continues competing to bring jobs to Georgia and keep the ones we currently have.
The new tax reform will consolidate the state's current agricultural exemptions into one simple exemption that enhances fairness and equity among agriculture producers.
HB 388 will modernize Georgia's communication tax structure by creating a uniform communications services tax that treats all service providers the same. Specifically, the plan would replace the patchwork of multiple taxes and fees currently charged at the state and local level with a single, uniform 7 percent tax on the retail sale of communications services.
As we take these vital steps forward, this tax reform plan will bring Georgia in line with the 44 other states who tax the casual sale of vehicles. By eliminating this exemption, the General Assembly will close a loophole exploited by certain unscrupulous used car dealers.
Finally, this plan will also allow the state to join the 21 other states, including Florida and Tennessee, that tax labor on automobile repair as well as the parts used in auto repair, which Georgia already taxes.
This important tax reform legislation is a product of the combined efforts of the Special Joint Committee on Georgia Revenue Structure as well as the Special Council on Tax Reform and Fairness for Georgians. Both groups were created by House Bill 1405, which was signed into law on June 1, 2010.
The Special Council on Tax Reform and Fairness for Georgians was entrusted with conducting a detailed study of the state's current revenue structure.
The Council conducted this research through a series of public meetings and public hearings throughout the state of Georgia from July through December of last year.
During these public hearings, members of the Council gathered public input on how best to reform the state's tax code to more fairly serve Georgians. The Council then submitted its findings and recommendations for changes to the state's tax code to the legislature at the beginning of the 2011 legislative session.
The Tax Council's submitted findings have now been thoroughly examined by the Special Joint Committee on Georgia Revenue Structure.
This joint committee, co-chaired by Rep. Mickey Channell and myself, is comprised of both House and Senate members and has worked over the last three months to craft the Council's recommendations into meaningful legislation, which ultimately became HB 388. As stipulated under last year's HB 1405, HB 388 will go through the legislative process and receive an up or down vote by the House followed by a vote in the Senate.
As we approach the final days of the legislative session, I will continue to be devoted to Georgians as the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and as Co-Chair of the Joint Committee on Georgia Revenue Structure. While we have made significant advancements for our state in these areas, I remain dedicated to all issues that affect the citizens of the 31st district. Please don't hesitate to let me know your thoughts on tax reform in Georgia, or any other issue you feel is vital to our state.
COWARDS WHO REFRAIN FROM ENACTING HARSH ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION LAWS WILL BE REMEMBERED
Very few State lawmakers understand the massive financial implications, for not serving the wishes of citizens and legal residents. Utah specifically is a relatively newcomer to the economic effects of illegal immigration as it’s not a frontier State. Thousands of economic illegal migrants and immigrants, who have already exhausted millions of dollars from the suffering State of Arizona, will be looking desperately for another State to drain. The Mormon State has essentially failed its population, with offering a unconstitutional Guest Worker program and other benefits, will soon learn their mistake as foreigners will sweep across the State line.
A repeat performance as in the Sanctuary States of California and Nevada, the schools will be swarmed by the progeny of illegal aliens and US children will get less attention from overtaxed teachers. The Utah school system will have to hire more bilingual teachers, demanding more money from taxpayers. Court procedure will need more interpreters, as the criminal aliens arrive to decimate the State. The hospitals will be raided next with minor afflictions and major illnesses, as the illegal Guest workers will inundate emergency rooms and their uninsured family members. Illegal females tend to have large clutches of newborns, with one to be conceived; to be paid for by hard working Americans. It's a fact that the majority of businesses that hire guest workers pay nothing towards their health care or the young children's education. Georgia on the other hand obviously convinced of the perils of giving into open border lobbyists and radical groups will inspire other States to enact harsh laws.
Although most harsh Georgia laws were sucked dry by, pro business interference, causing uproar amongst citizens and residence, specifically as they tried to hide their cowardice by unrecorded vote. All of these politicians that “ on the take” will be intently remembered, when they come-up for re-election Massachusetts although not fully enacting laws similar to Arizona has brought some saneness to its people.
THE UNITED STATES HAVING BEEN INVADED BY ILLEGALS, WITH THOSE IN POWER HAVING IGNORED THE FINANCIAL CONSEQUENCES IN OUR FUTURE; NOR HAS IT SLOWED? American citizens and residents must impose a mandatory E-Verify Nationwide, to enforce attrition and stop this immigration travesty.
The war is at our open borders and we must halt the smuggling of drugs, people and criminals that are killing innocent Americans wholesale, nationwide. This country is importing contagious diseases, which have spread quietly and not uttered by the government; but carefully concealed. Other States has signed on to federal law of Secure Communities to fingerprint and remove criminal aliens from their jurisdictions Arizona is steadfast in its immigration policing laws and although dealt a blow by the Liberal judges in the ninth circuit court of appeals is resolute on its journey to the Supreme court, to defend its constitutional rights of its populace. What most prudent people are asking is why do foreign corrupt governments have a right to interfere in American immigration politics? This is according to the 9th circuit hidden away in the Liberal-Democratic Sanctuary City of San Francisco, where the prosecutors released illegal alien gang-member Ramos, to slaughter a family of three leaving a mourning Mother?
The United States is sinking deeper into fiscal quicksand, with a 14 trillion dollar deficit and climbing ever faster. We cannot afford to sustain the rest of poverty stricken governments, who dump their indigent people in our laps. We must cut back on foreign aid stop policing the rest of the world. The wars in the Middle East are depleting our own people's welfare, the futures for our own grandchildren. Our only chance for survival is the growing extension of the TEA PARTY, as it moves apart from the Republican elites. The Tea Party is ready to face the battle lines being drawn in the forthcoming 2012 budget war. Join now and be part of the sane movement, to end the facade that is the illegal immigration occupation of our country. Find the facts not lies at the pro-sovereignty web pages of NumbersUSA. In addition the TEA PARTY will abruptly end special no-tax privileges to corporations like General Electric.
Thousands of corporations are using foreign havens to hide millions, perhaps billions of dollars in foreign countries, thanks to the tax breaks given to these entities by political parties, from lobbyists filtering secret brown-bag cash and large campaign contributions. We need more leaders like Sen. Rand Paul, Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. Anthony Weiner with the fury to do the right things for this ailing country. Cut out illegal immigration and we will save hundreds of billions in federal and State entitlements. While Americans get ready to file these tax returns, shareholders in these mega corporations receive benefits the average man can only imagine. We must stop this rot in the tax code and every corporation; business must pay its fair share. Remember the TEA PARTY is your revenge on the unfair laws that govern us. They are the only retribution we have against the rot in our own government.
CALL UP YOUR CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVE OR SENATOR, STATE OR FEDERAL AND PRESS THEM TO ENACT STRINGENT IMMIGRATION LAWS NOW
We must throw out all the conspirators who are in collusion with Mexico's President Calderon or any other potentate who uses the United States as a pressure valve from their degrading mismanagement and corruption by exporting their desperate and poverty to our country.
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