Tax exemptions get scrutiny in Georgia

Sales tax exemptions are getting closer scrutiny in Georgia following the release of the Center for a Better South's progressive tax reform book. According to a Monday story in The Augusta Chronicle by Morris News Service:

Now, some lawmakers and think tanks are looking at scrapping the exemptions, or at least some of them, in hopes of advancing other goals. The Center for a Better South would like to see the exemptions pitched overboard as part of a plan for creating what the organization says would be a fairer tax structure.

Some Republicans are taking a look at the exemptions as part of broader tax-reform efforts that could eventually include tax relief in other areas balanced out by repealing some of the exemptions.

"The truth of the matter is, tax exemptions are just a redistribution of taxes," said Rep. Larry O'Neal, R-Warner Robins, the chairman of a House panel studying the state's tax system.

Or, as the Center for a Better South puts it, the main problem with the exemptions is that everyone else ends up paying for them through a higher sales tax or other government charges.

"Over the years, special interests have gotten millions of dollars of customized sales tax breaks which eroded the pot of goods and services from which governments taxed sales," reports Doing Better: Progressive Tax Reform in the American South, a report the center issued last month. "In turn, governments have had to increase sales tax rates to balance the revenues lost to special interests."

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