Comité Finance del Senado, 9 de febrero de 2026

Transcripción

546 turnos. Seleccione un tiempo para reproducir ese momento del video.

1. 0:16:51

   Have a quorum present at this time.

2. 0:16:53

   We do.

3. 0:16:54

   And I'll ask, uh, Senator Halpern if you would do the invocation. Is that number 13? 12, okay. If I can get everybody's attention for invocation.

4. 0:17:06

   If you would bow your heads with me for our prayer. Dear Lord, thank you for another day to be at work for the people of this great state of Georgia. We thank you for the opportunity to serve, and as we do, we pray that you will allow us to have discernment, that you will allow us to listen, that you will allow us to understand. In these, in these things we pray. Amen.

5. 0:17:30

   Amen. All right. We've got, um, a few items on the agenda today, and, um, they all seem to be with, uh, Senator Tillery and his cosigners. So, um, we can go ahead. You got a preference in which order? One of them, one of them's a little bit shorter than the other one, but-

6. 0:17:52

   There is, Mr. Chair. I'd go with the senator, if you want me up here to, you know-

7. 0:17:55

   Whatever your preference is.

8. 0:17:56

   I'm happy to do them from here if you'd like for me to do so.

9. 0:17:59

   All right, go ahead. We'll start with, um, Senate Bill 476.

10. 0:18:03

    Okay. Senate Bill 476. I'm gonna pass these, uh... Senator Gooch, if you don't mind, I'll send these this way. I think we sent one or two that way already. As you recall, the lieutenant governor appointed a Senate special committee on elimination of Georgia's income tax earlier this year, or actually late last year. And we met several times over the interim to develop a plan for how we best could eliminate Georgia's income tax. As you know, I'm speaking to the choir on some of these things that you already know.

11. 0:18:36

    Our surrounding states have already tackled this issue. The state of Tennessee has gone to zero on their state income tax. The state of Florida's done the same. We know that North Carolina and South Carolina have laid out their plans to go to 2.99. Alabama's not really done anything, but if you go one state over to Mississippi, they've laid out a plan to go to zero in the next 14 years. Even since we've been in session, the state of Missouri has laid out a plan to go to zero on their state income tax as well. Nine states have already done it. I've told you the others that are working towards that.

12. 0:19:07

    Georgia would be an anomaly if we don't move in this direction, quite frankly. So through studies in off session, we, we developed a plan just to help Georgia remain competitive among its other states to make a drastic change in our income tax plan as well. It's about more, though, than just Georgia remaining competitive. You see, what we also found out is that Georgians are having a hard time figuring out how they're paying for several things, how they're paying for gas, how they're paying for groceries, how they're paying for childcare.

13. 0:19:40

    They've watched their power bills increase, and they now are looking and saying, "Hey, if, if, how are we gonna make our ends meet, uh, with record high inflation?" So what our study committee did is took all of this in, information in, and said, "While other states are walking their state income tax rate down from wherever they are to wherever they're headed, can we do something that actually helps the middle class more?" And some of you have heard me describe this already. If Georgia's income tax rate is a Subway sandwich, for many, many years what we've done is walk the rate down.

14. 0:20:12

    We started at 6%. We went to 5.75. We then went to 5.49, 5.39. We now stand at 5.19%. And while we've been eating that Subway sandwich, we've been coming at it from one side. If we were to take, what the committee did is said if we flip this and started eating that Subway sandwich from the other side at the same time, what would be the impact? And what we found out is that dropping the state income tax rate the way we were moving, 1% is roughly $3 billion. The state income tax brings in roughly $16.2 billion.

15. 0:20:44

    Our state income tax is roughly 5%, 5.19%. You can do the math there and see it's just over $3 billion, what you're talking about.

16. 0:20:53

    What bill is that, Senator?

17. 0:20:54

    About 476, Senator.

18. 0:20:56

    Thank you.

19. 0:20:56

    From the other side, if you were to raise the standard deduction and help families in the middle class the most, you also could raise that to $50,000 for an individual family or to $100,000 for someone who's married filing jointly, and the cost there each fiscal year is also $3 billion. Year one's $3 billion. Year two's roughly $3 billion, slightly less. It ends up being $5.87 billion to, to do that. Well, what would be the effect of raising the standard deduction to $100,000 for a married family and $50,000 for an individual?

20. 0:21:33

    Well, you actually end up eliminating the income tax for 64% of Georgians in year one, almost two-thirds, and you provide a $5,190 tax savings for those making more than $100,000 at the same time. So what the committee did, the special, um, committee on elimination of the Georgia income tax, we said instead of keeping to walking this rate down, let's flip this model and come from the other side, because we do think families are having a hard time paying for just necessary expenses right now. Let's give them the most benefit first in this process of eliminating Georgia's income tax completely.

21. 0:22:09

    476 does, does that. We also laid out a way to pay for this. When the study committee met, we made it clear that we had to figure out how we were gonna cover these costs. The members of the study committee of both the minority party and the majority party made it clear that we did not wanna raise a cost that did not exist currently on groceries. We did not wanna start taxing property. Georgia doesn't tax property now. You may know that. The property taxes all go to local government, cities, counties, and schools. And we did not want to raise the sales tax.

22. 0:22:41

    That was last ditch effort if you thought you had to do that. We actually developed the plan. The plan you see in Senate Bill 476 does everything we said and does not create or raise a new tax. So, let me walk you through it here for just a second. In section one, you'll see in part one, section one, they name the act. And then we adopt in section 2.1 the governor's rate reduction that he's already proposed, and that we believe the House will move along with as well, dropping the state income tax rate overall from 5.19% to 4.99%.

23. 0:23:17

    We did that as a nod to the governor to let him know this plan is not meant to be in place of his plan. It's rather to run harmoniously with his plan, and we support his effort to reduce the tax burden on Georgians. We then decouple the state income tax from the, um, property ta- or from the, uh, corporate tax for future years. In section 2.4, you'll see we then take and raise the standard deduction from its current level of 24,000 for a family, a middle class...

24. 0:23:47

    In fact, I would say that that's a, a, uh, uh, almost destitute family, 24,000 married filing jointly, to $100,000, which we think, again, puts us in line to eliminate the income tax on middle Georgia, on middle-class Georgians first, and to $50,000 for those who are single filing jointly. In section 3.1, we then start talking about our tax credits and say, it's 3.1 and 3.2, that any income tax credit that exists currently that does not have a sunset will have a sunset from here going forward that will, would make them end in December 31st of 2031.

25. 0:24:26

    That's how we pay for this. As you know, you've heard me talk about it, that we have roughly $30 billion in corporate welfare tax credits and exemptions, and sales tax exemptions. The-

26. 0:24:41

    What was the 150, the date that you gave of sunset? The- That they get till December 31st. 31st of 2031. Oh, 2031. Right. That's everything you're not gonna see that we otherwise cut. But so everything now ends up with the Senate's policy of a five-year sunset. We found out that there were some intum- income tax credits that had been passed before we started that sunset. It's fairly, really hard to go add that back. This bill adds that five-year sunset. Not to say that any credit specifically has to end, but it would end if it's not otherwise reauthorized by the General Assembly.

27. 0:25:11

    That's been our policy for several years now. And it sets up, really, accountability to make sure that those credits are still being used in a way that we think is most beneficial for middle Georgia or middle-class families. In section 4.1 is when we start cutting credits to pay for this. We, the plan doesn't pay for itself if you don't eliminate exemptions that you're already seeing many corporations take. Section 4.1's the Affordable Housing Project Credit. We had to rename it, so it takes several pages. The reason we had to rename it and do this is because Legislative Council advised the credit, at its time, was simply a doubling of the federal tax credit.

28. 0:25:50

    We believe that was the most generous credit we ever saw a state give for this program. The second most generous we could find was a 50% of the federal tax credit. So what you see us do in this section, 4.1, and the following pages in 4.2, is take that credit from where it was, a doubling of the federal tax credit, to where it's now 50% of the tax credit. Again, that still makes it, we think, the most generous in the nation, but it's not the most generous by times two.

29. 0:26:21

    In 5.1, we go ahead and formally eliminate the GARJA tax credit. As you know, this was debated at length in this chamber in the House, uh, probably four years ago. At the time, we completely defunded it, and now we just go ahead and remove it from code. R- This is GARJA. It's the Georgia Agriculture and Rural Jobs Act, GARJA. Probably inaccurately named, but it, it was the GARJA credit. It is not the GATE credit. Some people are getting that confused with the sales tax exemptions that farmers get.

30. 0:26:53

    We did not touch the GATE credit at all. 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 5.7 all eliminate special credits that are received by insurance companies. When insurance companies pay insurance premium taxes, they usually receive a dollar for dollar offset for their corporate or their, um, for their income c- tax credit that they pay the state.

31. 0:27:24

    We've had them come talk to us about eliminating the insurance premium, uh, tax, which now seems sort of incongruent, because if we were to eliminate that income premium tax, they also would've lost their income tax credit. I'm not sure why they would, would, would want that. Maybe some didn't, in the right hand, didn't know what the left hand was doing. But if they're, they're paying that insurance premium tax, usually in some instances to cities and counties, they're not, that's not coming to the state. Why is the state then giving them a dollar for dollar credit for that?

32. 0:27:55

    Especially in this age where you have a lot of people questioning what's happening with insurance companies generally. Uh, those were the sections that I read out. There's a lot of lines there, 'cause we cut a lot of credits. But 5.2, 5.3, five, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, and 5.7.

33. 0:28:16

    Picking up in, uh, section 5.8, 5.9, 5-10, and 5- uh, 5-10, those three relate to taxes that banks pay, again, usually to local governments for deposit, uh, institution taxes. When they pay those, they then get a dollar for dollar offset, it looks like, on their Georgia income tax credit. We said, again, these are going to the local government. Why is the local, the, the state still funding what they're getting a credit on the local government side?

34. 0:28:47

    If they got a issue with that tax, they should go talk to the local government about that tax, not necessarily pull it out of the state coffers. We eliminated those income tax credits as well. In 511, that's actually a relatively new one. The- Which one? 5-11 Yeah, I'm just going in order, Senator. So we're on page 13 if you want me to-

35. 0:29:06

    Well, I gotta-

36. 0:29:07

    Wait on you?

37. 0:29:11

    I believe.

38. 0:29:11

    You re- with me? Okay. 5-11, there was an extra $1,250 per job, uh, that we started in the COVID era to allow eligible expenses for teleworking. It seems now, if, as we've moved past COVID, that that is probably one that if we're looking to eliminate credits to be able to reduce the income tax, it now seems that that's timeframe has run. 5-12, Senator, that's at line 315. Personal protective equipment.

39. 0:29:41

    As you remember also during COVID, we tried to start businesses as quick as we could to make masks, to make gloves, to make anything we could, so we allowed a 12 d- $1,250 credit on top of the jobs tax credit, which also provides a, a lot of, uh, money for jobs created in our state related to creating PPE, personal protective equipment. Again, it seems like that time has run. If we're looking at reducing the income tax, that's one we recommend for repeal as well. 5-13, the same thing.

40. 0:30:11

    We were trying to push people into creating ventilators at the time, so we exempted or gave an additional tax credit of $1,250 per job for medical equipment, supplies, et cetera. Again, we've passed that age. That's one we're looking at pulling back. In 5-14, there are credits we do for telecommunications facilities and manufacturing. We do these on a tier basis. We rank all the counties in four tiers, the poorest counties being tier one, something in the middle being tiers twos and three, and then your most wealthy counties being tier four.

41. 0:30:43

    What 5-14 does is pulls back those credits in tier three and four counties. These are usually our most populous counties, the counties that we're having the hardest time providing infrastructure to, including jobs. It does bring up the question of why we would want to incentivize jobs in areas that we're already having issues with infrastructure. We recommended that we pull those back in tier three and tier four counties. Section 15, uh, 5-15 and 5-16 both relate to the Port of Savannah. It's doing incredibly well. As you've seen the emails that we get from our ports authority telling us that even in this age of uncertainty, um, their port traffic has continued to increase.

42. 0:31:20

    We continue to, to be a model for the nation. Since we've now begun filling that facility, we then recommend, why do we need to offer tax credits for those who will locate close by to that facility or who are increasing their port traffic? We know that we are actually having a harder time with people now in Statesboro traveling to Savannah. They've now told us that they are traveling to Augusta for their needs because the traffic in Savannah's getting so bad. Why would we continue to offer a credit to further, um, create congestion in an area that we're feeling so, feeling so well?

43. 0:31:53

    Let's, uh, push those again to places that do not have that traffic and infrastructure issue. Section 5-17 pulls back the tax credit that we had placed previously for those folks who would want to buy an electrical vehicle charger. Again, is that something that we need to have in the code anymore? Can we save the money on that tax credit and roll back the income tax further? I think we can. 5-18 is for businesses headquartered in the state. Again, same thing. They have to, in that credit, you have to offer at least 100% of the average wage of the community, and for how, how much higher you go above the average wage, you can see an additional tax credit.

44. 0:32:33

    Um, our committee said that's one that we likely could roll back and use that money instead to, um, benefit the middle class and everyday Georgians. Uh, section 5-19, we actually offer a credit in Georgia for the manufacturing of cigarettes for exportation. Um, we figured that the day of that's probably gone as well, so we recommended to eliminate, or eliminate that, uh, income tax credit. And then 5-20, if you're a business that purchases a car or a motor vehicle for transporting your employees, you are able to get a tax credit for the purchase of that car.

45. 0:33:06

    Again, that's something that's probably only being used by, um, those in the know. We would rather make that be, that those funds be available for everyday Georgians to reduce the cost that they have on gas, groceries, and childcare. In 5-21, there's a research credit. In fact, I think Senator Dolezal brought this up before, where some folks would go around, and it was their job to actually convince folks to switch the titles that they had of employees. So if your employee was a secretary, you may now call her a, or him, a research assistant.

46. 0:33:39

    If you did that, then you could change... You could potentially se- receive a research tax credit for the cost of his or her job. There's also, though, as we dug into this more, we realized there is a lot of research going on in this state at places like Gulf Stream and other manufacturers, so we don't wanna cut it out completely. What we recommended instead, until we can get a better handle on that, is let's reduce it from a 25% credit right now for that person's job to a 12 and a half percent credit, cutting it in half. Again, acknowledging that there are legitimate uses for this, but at the same time questioning some that we, we don't think are quite as legitimate.

47. 0:34:18

    In section 5-22, we recommend several sales tax exemptions for elimination as well. One is a tax credit that is used to set up clean rooms. Uh, if they are buying equipment for that clean room, they could receive an exemption on sales tax. Um, again, that's only in that environment. We don't think that's fair. And then, of course, the one we talked about the most, starting at 363 and then again at 369, are two tax credits, or two sales tax exemptions rather, that are used for data centers.

48. 0:34:52

    Um, as you know, if you have a son, daughter, grandson, or granddaughter who is going to school at one of our state's universities or colleges tonight, and you go buy them a laptop, you're gonna pay sales tax on that laptop But if you were buying $15 million worth of computer parts 'cause you were building a data center, you were not gonna pay sales tax. That sales tax exemption started out, I believe, uh, Senator Hickman told me one time he thought it was $37 million, maybe a few years ago. It's now ballooned to be over $700 million.

49. 0:35:24

    That's literally 25% of what we're saying the one-year cost of re- of reducing everybody's income tax to zero for families making less than $100,000 costs. So we've recommended that one for elimination, those two for elimination as well. Section 5-23 is commonly called the yacht sales tax credit. As you know, if you buy- bought single boat parts in Georgia, yachts, uh, parts for your yacht, you did not have to pay sales tax. That code section was found at 48-8-3.4.

50. 0:35:57

    We've recommended that you eliminate that sales tax exemption. And then section 6.1 lays out the effective dates. The income tax reduction for families and individuals would be effective starting January 1, 2027. That means if we're able to pass this bill, and if the House sees that it's a good bill as well and passes it, and the governor signs it, that two-thirds of Georgians would see their income tax eliminated on January 1, 2027, in literally 11 months.

51. 0:36:29

    It also means that families making more than that $100,000 amount would see $5,190 in tax savings in Jan- January 1 of 2027, in literally 11 months. The effective date for section, for other sections though, begins J- July 1, 2026, and that's just to stay in, in line with what we've normally done with tax credits. And then the effective date for the governor's proposal to drop the state income tax from 5.19% to 4.99% is backdated to January 1 of 2026, which again, was a request of his administration, uh, earlier on this year.

52. 0:37:06

    Thank you so much for allowing me, first, uh, senators, to chair this committee and bring this proposal. I do think that this has, uh, the biggest, the largest impact on families that we've ever seen. It puts the bur- the benefit clearly with the middle class. If affordability is your concern, there is literally no argument you can make as to why this proposal does not help middle-class families. And I heard you. I hear you. And I think you hear them.

53. 0:37:38

    This is something we can do together. I hope it... Uh, the bill is bipartisan already, but I hope it can be bipartisan today coming out of this committee. Happy to answer any questions, Mr. Chairman.

54. 0:37:48

    Thank you, Mr. Chair of Appropriations, and for leading the committee that a lot of us in here worked on together. I'll give a little filler while everybody's catching up with these bills if you need a, a minute. But, you know, the Georgia income tax was started in, uh, 1929, I believe. Um, now October of 1929 is when the stock market crashed. We had the Great Depression. I'm not saying the income tax caused that by taking money from the citizens, but it was at the same time. There were no cuts in the income tax until some years ago when Jay Powell was chairing House Ways and Means, and he and I were able to get together and get a quarter percent cut.

55. 0:38:26

    And then some years back, Shaw Blackmon and I put in this method that we're on now, that the endgame was 4.99 of that particular tax credit. Now, the governor's accelerated it a couple of times, and instead of one-tenth, he's doing two-tenths. He's recommending that again. But this year, we will be at the 4.99 that we all planned on. One of the things we did on that was we, um, flattened the tax right out, but we wanted to make sure that we didn't do what other states had done of actually raising taxes on some people.

56. 0:39:00

    We wanted everybody to have a tax cut, so we quadrupled the personal exemption at the time, which meant nobody had a, a, uh, tax increase, and everybody had a tax cut from bottom to top. Again, looking out for the, the middle class. Um, I guess GARGA's a sore subject with me. You, you, you bring that up, and I'm glad we didn't renew it. Um, I think it was 2000-

57. 0:39:24

    Which one was that?

58. 0:39:25

    GARGA back in 2016. Two president pro tems ago, I thought I had it beat, and, uh, he got a revote and got it passed by one vote with, with getting a member of the other party to vote with him on that. So, uh, um-

59. 0:39:41

    Oh.

60. 0:39:41

    I thought that was, that was one of the more egregious of them, so, uh, I, I don't mind, uh, repealing that as well. Um, I do think, um, one other comment I wanna make so that people understand the magnitude of some of these tax credits. The two we talked about, um, the computer and the data center credit equal one month's state income taxes that everybody pays.

61. 0:40:12

    So I've got 1.4 million small businesses, and small businesses are 99.7% of the businesses in Georgia. So why should these businesses not take that month's and invest in their own business? Everybody invest in their own versus being forced to, to give that. So I appreciate Chairman Tillery's leadership on that.

62. 0:40:31

    He's talking about the base.

63. 0:40:32

    Right. And, and I think that's been a bipartisan issue that somebody else had a bill on that as well, a couple of seats to the right of me here. Senator, uh, is that Hickman that has his light up? Go ahead.

64. 0:40:45

    Thank you.

65. 0:40:45

    Senator Hickman.

66. 0:40:45

    Um, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for bringing this. You are very versed on all this, and you're very versed on the code section. I am not. Um, I am-

67. 0:40:57

    You're a CPA.

68. 0:40:58

    Huh?

69. 0:40:59

    You have a CPA.

70. 0:41:02

    Well, that's true, too. Um- And I don't know, I really don't, I don't know, I just got, got this to look at, but, but one of my passions of the tax credits is the rural hospital tax credit.

71. 0:41:13

    Mm-hmm.

72. 0:41:14

    And then probably another passion would be the, uh, private school tax credit. Are you proposing elimination of those credits in here?

73. 0:41:21

    So we did not eliminate them immediately, but those are two that actually did not have a sunset on them. Um, and I don't know that both of them did. They might have had a five-year sunset on one and not the other. If it did not have a sunset, we put a five-year sunset on it, and we did that cart blank across any income tax credit, just because that's been the policy of the Senate now for-

74. 0:41:41

    2017. 2017 is when we started

75. 0:41:43

    ... since '27, for the past decade.

76. 0:41:44

    Trying to think, yeah.

77. 0:41:45

    So if it received any... If those two received any negative treatment, the only negative retreatment they received was a sunset in five years, unless otherwise renewed by the legislature, which you know has been our policy for the past 10 years.

78. 0:41:58

    So can you provide us with a summation of those that are proposed to be eliminated versus those that, that, that have sunsets?

79. 0:42:07

    Uh, I thought I just did, but I can read it to you again.

80. 0:42:11

    Well, you did. You did, but I'm talking about something I can look at so my-

81. 0:42:14

    I can lay them down on the table.

82. 0:42:15

    Yeah, sure. Uh-

83. 0:42:16

    Yeah, yeah, because I, I, I, I respect-

84. 0:42:19

    Everyone's, we've got 13 more here. Speak when you're called on

85. 0:42:19

    ... I, I, I respect your knowledge on this. Please don't misunderstand me on that.

86. 0:42:22

    Right.

87. 0:42:22

    But it's just to, just... 'Cause, 'cause when, when it, whenever we vote this thing out of here, we're gonna walk out, and we're gonna have people all over-

88. 0:42:28

    Right

89. 0:42:28

    ... talking to us about this one, and, and I need to know what the answer is if, if-

90. 0:42:32

    Right

91. 0:42:33

    ... if, if that the rural hospital tax credit is a five-year sunset, I agree with that.

92. 0:42:36

    But with, with a five-year sunset.

93. 0:42:38

    Yeah, I, I'm fine with it.

94. 0:42:38

    We did not touch them otherwise. Uh, if you're an insurance company with a tax credit, we probably got it. If you're a bank with a tax credit, we probably got it. If you have... were making yachts-

95. 0:42:48

    I'll get those

96. 0:42:48

    ... and you didn't want to pay sales tax on your sales, on your parts, we gotcha.

97. 0:42:51

    And the cigarette tax credits are going too, huh?

98. 0:42:53

    If you were making cigarettes for export, and you had a tax credit, you probably ain't gonna have those anymore.

99. 0:42:57

    I totally agree with that, but, but it would help me tremendously if you do that one.

100. 0:43:00

     Yes, sir.

101. 0:43:00

     Thank you.

102. 0:43:01

     All right. Um, Senator Gooch.

103. 0:43:06

     Sort of in line with what Senator, uh, Hickman was asking about, can we get a list of all these, the, the fiscal impact of each one of these code sections that you went through so quickly?

104. 0:43:16

     Sure. You want me to run through-

105. 0:43:16

     'Cause I believe some of these have zero impact on the budget today. Um, the... Tell me what the EV tax credit is in the budget t- today.

106. 0:43:23

     Yeah.

107. 0:43:23

     I don't know that we have one. We repealed it in 2015.

108. 0:43:27

     It is slightly less than $1 million.

109. 0:43:29

     So-

110. 0:43:29

     It does have a, it does have an impact today.

111. 0:43:31

     It-

112. 0:43:31

     It actually exists for another year.

113. 0:43:32

     So can you go through, maybe if you, if you have a list, can you hand it out to us?

114. 0:43:36

     So, yeah. Well, I can, uh, res-

115. 0:43:38

     Just to leave

116. 0:43:38

     ... I kept this one. But let me walk you through this, too.

117. 0:43:41

     Can we get one of our-

118. 0:43:41

     We got a problem with a few of our numbers, and this is something that me and the chairman have gone through, too. So if I tell you this number, please know I am using the low-end number. The, there is a discrepancy between the fiscal impact from DOR and the Department of Audits, and usually that runs because the audits provision runs two years in lags. So when we get the fiscal note, it will be better than what I tell you.

119. 0:44:11

     But I want to run you at the back end right now. If you were to look at the banks, you're talking about, about $55 million. If you're talking about the teleworking expenses, you're talking about 3 to $4 million. PPE, about the-

120. 0:44:24

     Senator Sims.

121. 0:44:24

     Sorry?

122. 0:44:25

     Speak. Get called-

123. 0:44:26

     Am I speaking?

124. 0:44:26

     ... and speak, okay?

125. 0:44:27

     Am I, am I clear?

126. 0:44:28

     No, you're speaking.

127. 0:44:29

     Okay.

128. 0:44:29

     But you keep getting interrupted by committee members.

129. 0:44:31

     Okay. Um, the jo- the PPE credit and job tax credit, if I push them together from the corporate side and the personal side, you're about $4 million. The existing manufacturing and telecom facilities in Tier 1 and Tier 4 counties is around $23 million. You have $3 million that comes back in on code section 48-7, uh, -40.7, which again relates to that telecom phrase. The port traffic, we think, is around $6 million. I'm giving you the low one, not the high one.

130. 0:45:01

     The EV tax credit, like I told you, is right at a million dollars. The, um, 48-7-40.17, quality jobs, when we did the amendment, that was actually one that got struck out in, in some of the discussions from the committee members. But it would have been, the high end of that, or sorry, the low end of that one was $221 million. If a headquarters comes to your state right now, it's around a million dollars. Making cigarettes is a million dollars. The purchase of transportation for, um, employees was right at a million dollars.

131. 0:45:35

     The research credit, if we were to cut it in half, is about $6 million. Data centers, and you'll see what I'm saying, I'm gonna use the $131 million number for it, but the number we just got on the fiscal note was over seven. It was right at 700. And then data centers, the second credit, we'll use 46 million, but the second one we got on that was also approaching that number. Uh, the clean room of machinery, I'm gonna call it a million because I'm gonna use the low end. And then, uh, I think that hits, I think that hits most of, most of the ones we were interested in.

132. 0:46:09

     Can I, can I follow up?

133. 0:46:10

     Sure.

134. 0:46:10

     The, the blue crab bait fishermen, um, I don't think it's much money. They, they did a good job back in the 1960s getting that, but, um, I, I think that one can go away as well.

135. 0:46:19

     Do, do you have an intern that could put that on a spreadsheet and provide it to us so we'll have it?

136. 0:46:25

     Sure. What, what I'm hoping-

137. 0:46:26

     Um, so-

138. 0:46:26

     ... that we will also see is that we'll get the DOA, uh, Department of Audits, and the Department of Revenue's numbers, and be able to figure out why those aren't the same.

139. 0:46:34

     So can I ask s- a couple more questions?

140. 0:46:36

     Sure.

141. 0:46:37

     The life insurance premiums that you talked about with the local governments-

142. 0:46:41

     Yeah

143. 0:46:41

     ... do you have any idea what the impact of that's gonna be? 'Cause I'm assuming all the locals will just add that to their p- millage rate increase next year when they lose that, 'cause it's a rollback, mandatory rollback now, if I'm not mistaken.

144. 0:46:53

     So we did not end the insurance premium tax that they receive.

145. 0:46:57

     Thought you said you repealed it in this-

146. 0:46:58

     No, sir.

147. 0:46:59

     No.

148. 0:46:59

     They get a dollar for dollar offset on their Georgia income tax after they pay that tax to the locals.

149. 0:47:04

     Right.

150. 0:47:04

     The question was, as they brought that up as a, they brought that up as an issue of competitiveness, that they don't have to pay it elsewhere. Uh, what I'm highlighting for you is they get a dollar for dollar offset on their income tax in Georgia

151. 0:47:18

     So what's the, what's the no- what's the impact on that to the state budget?

152. 0:47:21

     I need to pull that one for you separately.

153. 0:47:23

     Okay.

154. 0:47:23

     I apologize.

155. 0:47:24

     Um, where's the other one?

156. 0:47:26

     The end, the... I can tell you though, if you, if you total all these up, it ends up being, um, actually to the positive if you keep the, the ends in 2031 if we didn't renew some of those. But we know we're gonna renew some of those in 2031. So I've left us space to renew things like the SSO, the Less Crimes Act, the Rural Hospital Credit. We still can renew that and still remain revenue neutral for Georgia.

157. 0:47:48

     I, I think the, the, the first phase would be well more than covered with this. You know, the, there's, uh, the 100,000 that, that's starting out. Now, I think Chairman Tillery's right. Coming to 2031, it depends on what gets renewed on some of those on revenue.

158. 0:48:06

     Can I ask a follow-up?

159. 0:48:06

     Sure, go ahead.

160. 0:48:07

     Chairman, do you intend to reflect these new numbers in the proposed '27 fiscal budget that you'll be working on next month?

161. 0:48:15

     Yes. So you won't have to.

162. 0:48:18

     You'll have to reflect the income.

163. 0:48:19

     Um, you would not have to.

164. 0:48:22

     So we're not gonna increase revenue to offset the tax.

165. 0:48:24

     Well, here, here's the thing they're taking out-

166. 0:48:25

     You don't have to do that, no. You've been on the budget for 14... You've been on the budget longer than I have. You know how it's-

167. 0:48:28

     They're taking out before we get the revenue.

168. 0:48:31

     You're putting it back in to pay for it, though. You have-

169. 0:48:35

     Mm-hmm.

170. 0:48:35

     You still have to acknowledge it. You'll have to recognize it as income.

171. 0:48:38

     No, sir.

172. 0:48:39

     You-

173. 0:48:39

     That's not how the budget works.

174. 0:48:40

     Okay.

175. 0:48:43

     All right. I think mic 12, is that Senator Hodges or who's, who's that? Uh, maybe you were next. Go ahead.

176. 0:48:49

     Thank you.

177. 0:48:49

     I'm not trying to name names.

178. 0:48:50

     Um, I would agree that everywhere we turn, people are telling us that affordability is a problem for them, and I appreciate that we need to try to do something for them. I have many, many questions. I might get cut off before I can ask all of them.

179. 0:49:09

     Sure.

180. 0:49:09

     But the first one that I wanna ask you is this. Um, it's my understanding that in other states that have eliminated the state income tax, that in fact they have raised other taxes to also make up for that. And I am wondering if you know how many states without an income tax have a higher overall tax burden than Georgia does today.

181. 0:49:33

     Right. Senator, I don't. But the cool thing with this plan, and actually the brilliant thing of this plan, is we don't have to worry about that because this plan delivers this answer, eliminating the income tax for families of less than $100,000 without raising a sales tax.

182. 0:49:49

     To follow up on that-

183. 0:49:51

     Sure

184. 0:49:51

     ... so it's also my understanding, though, that the way that our tax, um, brackets are written right now, it's kind of more distributed to, right? So people who are already, people who make less money are actually paying relatively little at already in state income tax, and then it progressively goes up based on what you earn.

185. 0:50:12

     No, it doesn't. So Georgia has a flat income tax, so everyone is charged 5.19%.

186. 0:50:17

     Yes. Okay.

187. 0:50:21

     But by eliminating that, you are in fact putting more money back into the pockets of your highest earners.

188. 0:50:28

     Well, let's talk about that for a second. Are you talking about on 476?

189. 0:50:33

     I'm, I'm only talking about 476 that you just-

190. 0:50:36

     Yes, ma'am.

191. 0:50:37

     Yeah.

192. 0:50:37

     So on 476, what you end up doing is eliminating the income tax completely for families making less than $100,000 filing jointly. If they make more than $100,000, they will still pay taxes, but they will pay taxes less the income tax on the first 100,000, which would be a $5,190 savings at the current tax rate, assuming no other deductions. So the only argument that you could make that this benefits the rich more is if paying taxes is a benefit over not paying taxes.

193. 0:51:21

     I don't think anybody thinks that's the case.

194. 0:51:26

     I would agree with the idea that, of course, nobody would like to pa- everybody would love to pay no taxes.

195. 0:51:36

     Right.

196. 0:51:36

     We still have services to deliver. We still have things that the government is expected to do, that people expect us to do. Um, then, uh, let me ask you this.

197. 0:51:48

     Yeah.

198. 0:51:48

     Have you modeled at all how eliminating the income tax would affect our triple A bond rating?

199. 0:51:55

     Well, the first thing is 476 doesn't eliminate it, right? 476 eliminates the income tax on the first $100,000 for every Georgia family. If you make a gazillion dollars, you now will pay, uh, taxes on gaz- a gazillion less 100,000. If you make a million dollars, you're now only gonna pay taxes on 900,000. If you make 70,000 because you are a teacher married to a firefighter, you now won't pay income taxes at all.

200. 0:52:21

     So-

201. 0:52:21

     But it pays for itself by eliminating corporate credits, like those insurance company credits I told you about. It just puts people over companies. That's all 476 does.

202. 0:52:34

     Yes. And then there's 477. Okay, we'll stick with 476.

203. 0:52:39

     Well, if I can only get your vote on 476, I'll take half the, the cake. I-

204. 0:52:42

     Yeah. I, I, I know. I know that too

205. 0:52:43

     ... I understand that my 50% friend is only my 50% enemy.

206. 0:52:48

     Um...

207. 0:52:51

     But, uh, you wanna, you wanna ponder that and go to somebody else?

208. 0:52:54

     Yep.

209. 0:52:54

     Um, Senator Hodges, I think you were next. Or who, who was... Is that you?

210. 0:53:00

     Well, I can have a-

211. 0:53:01

     Okay, go ahead.

212. 0:53:02

     Okay. Um, Senator, thank you for this. And I don't listen very quickly. I don't, I certainly don't listen as, as fast as you talk sometime. But just if you would-

213. 0:53:16

     Yeah

214. 0:53:16

     ... on the, um, on the, uh-

215. 0:53:20

     ... housing tax credit.

216. 0:53:23

     Yes, sir.

217. 0:53:23

     I listened to you. What I wrote down was that basically what you did was we were at, um, a qualifying tax credit was incomes two times the, the, um, federal median, and you dropped it to 50, to 50%.

218. 0:53:41

     No, sir. It's different-

219. 0:53:42

     No

220. 0:53:42

     ... on that credit.

221. 0:53:43

     Okay.

222. 0:53:43

     You want me to walk you through that credit?

223. 0:53:44

     Please, if you would.

224. 0:53:45

     So, um-

225. 0:53:45

     And also tell me what the effect is.

226. 0:53:47

     Yeah.

227. 0:53:47

     I didn't, I didn't get that dollar amount.

228. 0:53:49

     In, there is a federal tax credit for developers who develop low-income housing.

229. 0:53:55

     Yeah, absolutely.

230. 0:53:57

     There, when the feds have a program, sometimes states will also create a program, and the states are very disparate on how they implement it. Maybe it's 10% of the federal credit, maybe it's 20. Most, I won't say most, I'll say that the most generous we found outside of Georgia was 50% of the federal tax credit.

231. 0:54:17

     Okay.

232. 0:54:17

     Georgia actually offered, you could get the federal credit, 100% of the federal credit, and then you could get 100% of the amount of the federal credit as a state credit. What this bill does is says, "We're only gonna allow you to get 50% of what you got on the federal side as a state credit as well." Mainly it's an acknowledgement that the state income tax is s- 5.19%, and your federal income tax rate-

233. 0:54:43

     Yeah. Mm-hmm

234. 0:54:43

     ... is 20 something percent.

235. 0:54:44

     Mm-hmm.

236. 0:54:44

     So the, and if, if someone corrects me later, they're more than welcome to do so, but we could not find a state that was more generous than the 50% number other than Georgia. We were an outlier, and rather than eliminate the credit completely, as we did with over a dozen credits-

237. 0:55:01

     Mm-hmm

238. 0:55:01

     ... as you saw, we said, "Let's move this to the 50% that we've seen other states set at."

239. 0:55:07

     And, and did you come up with a dollar amount effect?

240. 0:55:10

     I will have to give you that dollar amount. I apologize.

241. 0:55:13

     That's fine. Okay.

242. 0:55:14

     I can pull the low-income-

243. 0:55:15

     Well, the, the whole program is about-

244. 0:55:16

     $400 million?

245. 0:55:17

     ... 7, 700 million, and so it would be half of that if you cut back to 50%.

246. 0:55:21

     And that depends on if you're reading the, the Dole report or the DOR report. The DOR report-

247. 0:55:26

     Yeah

248. 0:55:26

     ... I think puts the total at 400.

249. 0:55:27

     Right.

250. 0:55:28

     So we're either at 200 or 400.

251. 0:55:29

     200. Okay, thank you.

252. 0:55:31

     Um, and that one we did have a study on a few years back, couple or three years back, that showed we were way more generous, and they couldn't find any correlation in that study. And there's people that'll always disagree with studies, but they couldn't find any correlation with that extra 50% and getting more housing built. It just seemed like it was going to the developers. And, you know, only 20% of these, uh, if at a certain income, only 20% of them have to be for low income. Oth- other 80% can be unchecked. So, um, it's a, it's a program we looked at on this committee in the past, but-

253. 0:56:05

     And, and let me clarify something I said. Um, Mr. Chairman, I, what I meant to say was that I listen very slowly, not that you talk fast. Okay?

254. 0:56:18

     All right.

255. 0:56:18

     I'm probably guilty of that.

256. 0:56:19

     Thank you. I think, uh, Senator Rhett, you're next.

257. 0:56:22

     Yes, sir. I have two quick questions.

258. 0:56:25

     Okay.

259. 0:56:26

     Today I w- I didn't, I got on my Dollar Store glasses, and I was looking through here for a fiscal note, and I was wondering, do we have access to a fiscal note pertaining to this bill?

260. 0:56:37

     We've got, we've got one requested that we don't have yet. Um-

261. 0:56:40

     Mm-hmm

262. 0:56:41

     ... and we will, we'll certainly get it, um, shortly. But we, uh, we know these credits add up to the point to where it would more than, than pay for this cut. Got in there.

263. 0:56:50

     And the only other question is since we're starting the bill here in the Senate, I, I assume it wouldn't be considered a revenue bill?

264. 0:56:59

     Senator, you bring up a good point. In fact, if you'd like to help us with that later, I'll take that, that motion from you. I think we got a plan on that one.

265. 0:57:05

     Got a plan?

266. 0:57:07

     Yeah. All right. Um, Senator Harbin, are you number, which one are you? Did you have a question?

267. 0:57:13

     Yeah.

268. 0:57:13

     10? Okay, go ahead.

269. 0:57:14

     All right. Senator Tillery, thank you. Great job, Senator Hufstetler, for what you're doing and the work that you're doing here. I notice your 5.7 dealing with life insurance companies. Georgia does not have a lot of life insurance companies that are domiciled in the state. Am I correct that one of the reasons that is true is because of the tax, the environment that is here for insurance companies, or specifically life insurance companies? Am I correct?

270. 0:57:37

     I, I don't know the reason, but I could tell you that when we had this exemption here, they weren't coming, so why would doing away the exemption make them come more?

271. 0:57:44

     Understood. The other part I think is this, uh, I, I would say we live in a, a, a society of t- I'm gonna call them tax ticks. They are ticks all over your body. They're ticks taxing you in multiple places, and you just gotta pull one off and start. Uh, premium taxes are also here. Part of that goes to the state. Part of that goes to the counties or cities as far as that portion. The consideration is that we complain about premiums being higher, and yet we have the ability, could we look at even eliminating the tax on insurance premiums to lower the ta- to lower the premiums for the citizens?

272. 0:58:17

     That's another way that we could look at it. I don't know if that's been looked at it or not. That was just a thought.

273. 0:58:21

     It's not something that we looked at in this bill, but if, if there was a requirement that there was a dollar for dollar rollback on premiums-

274. 0:58:27

     Gotcha

275. 0:58:27

     ... I think you'd probably see a lot of support in this body.

276. 0:58:29

     Okay. Uh, other part is on the data centers as far as that portion. And, am I, and I'm, from the testimonies from the last time we were here, once these are completed, the data centers are completed, and equipment is replaced, the time period of that was, on the existing ones is what? 20, uh, 2032, something like that? Am I correct?

277. 0:58:52

     Uh, I think there's two different credits that run out at two different times.

278. 0:58:56

     Okay.

279. 0:58:57

     So one runs out in 2027 and maybe one in 2032.

280. 0:59:00

     Yeah, the end, end of '31 on the, on the data centers and the end of '27 on the, uh, computer equipment.

281. 0:59:07

     Okay. So that when they are replacing their equipment, there's gonna be a jump in our revenue as a state once that goes away, and I'm assuming that future data centers, we're looking at that as not giving quite as long of a range of credits. Am I, am I correct on that, or is that really wrong?

282. 0:59:23

     Uh, correct, because the, the, the University of Georgia Carl Vinson Institute said that at least 70% of them would've come anyway, that we're giving our money away, and like I said earlier, that's one, one whole month of income taxes to give a, a small group that credit.

283. 0:59:36

     I think once they've spent the mil- billions and billions of dollars

284. 0:59:39

     That little bit of difference from the standpoint of the sales tax to replace equipment is not gonna affect whether they stay or go. But, uh, great job. Appreciate it. All right. Senator Orrock, you're up next.

285. 0:59:55

     Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I, I have a, a, a, several questions. Number one, uh, we're, we're proceeding to put this... Is this bill up for a vote today in committee?

286. 1:00:11

     Certainly it's eligible for, for a vote in the committee.

287. 1:00:13

     It's eligible for a vote, but, but, but we don't have a, a fiscal note.

288. 1:00:20

     Well, well, we can-

289. 1:00:20

     Kind of mind-boggling.

290. 1:00:26

     Okay.

291. 1:00:26

     But that's a- that's accurate. It could be voted on today, but we have no fiscal note in front of us.

292. 1:00:32

     Senator, we, we do know that the bill more than pays for itself. It uses corporate tax credits to offer the largest tax credit ever to the middle class.

293. 1:00:45

     A- a- a- and, and the next thing is, is that you, you were silent in response to the question about how do, how does a bill of this nature start in the Senate when revenue bills-

294. 1:00:57

     Yeah

295. 1:00:57

     ... are required to start in the House?

296. 1:01:00

     Well- Well, I'll answer one, too. We've had bills that I've done that they switched to a House bill to satisfy them. I don't think that's constitutional. I'll go back to 2010 when the Senate majority leader, Chip Rogers at the time, the, the last big tax bill-

297. 1:01:15

     I remember him

298. 1:01:16

     ... was under a Senate bill under his name. I don't think that's constitutional, but at the same time-

299. 1:01:21

     Yeah

300. 1:01:21

     ... he's got a plan for if they insist on that-

301. 1:01:24

     He's got a plan for it

302. 1:01:25

     ... to put, to put it under a House bill name.

303. 1:01:26

     Trust me, I've got-

304. 1:01:27

     No, no, you'll see it. No, ma'am, I won't let you leave this room without doing it if you stay.

305. 1:01:30

     What? I'm sorry.

306. 1:01:31

     So-

307. 1:01:31

     I'm sorry. What?

308. 1:01:31

     You'll see the plan today.

309. 1:01:34

     Oh, but w- we haven't seen it yet?

310. 1:01:36

     Well, it's just basically- You won't see it ... putting it on a House bill. Um, we've got a bill from Chairman Blackmon and a bill from Beth Camp-

311. 1:01:43

     Uh-huh

312. 1:01:43

     ... that are House bills-

313. 1:01:43

     Okay

314. 1:01:43

     ... that will satisfy-

315. 1:01:44

     Build-

316. 1:01:44

     ... what they require

317. 1:01:45

     ... building w- good working ties with the other chamber. That's, that's wonderful. I-

318. 1:01:49

     Senator, if they don't wanna reduce the income tax for hardworking Georgians, then I don't wanna work with them. But I think they do-

319. 1:01:54

     Oh, well-

320. 1:01:54

     ... because we've talked with them already, and they hear the same thing that you're hearing. You have been a champion for folks for the middle class.

321. 1:02:00

     Mm.

322. 1:02:00

     But today you're gonna get given a bill that is gonna give you the opportunity to reduce the income tax for families making less than $100,000. And the only group that does poorly under this are corporate big businesses. The AJC just listed its winners and losers as we've been sitting in this room, and said the winners are individuals making less than 50,000.

323. 1:02:21

     Mm.

324. 1:02:21

     The winners are families making less than 100,000.

325. 1:02:23

     Mm.

326. 1:02:23

     The losers, they said this, not me, is big business.

327. 1:02:27

     Well-

328. 1:02:28

     I'll... Throw me in that briar patch every day.

329. 1:02:30

     Okay.

330. 1:02:30

     I wanna fight for the folks who are trying to make Georgia better.

331. 1:02:33

     Well-

332. 1:02:33

     And on, on 382 the other day, the, the senator from Savannah said that, uh, why weren't we working on corporate welfare? This bill does exactly that.

333. 1:02:42

     Well, there's several senators from the J- Savannah, so I don't-

334. 1:02:44

     Well, it was the-

335. 1:02:45

     I don't... Not the problem. Yeah

336. 1:02:46

     ... the senator from Savannah.

337. 1:02:46

     Um, I, I, I, I, I, I think the truth about this bill is that the rate reduction favors the wealthy. The rate reduction favors the wealthy.

338. 1:02:57

     Senator, the rate reduction in this bill reduces the top-end rate from 5.19% to 4.99%. It's a 40 basis point reduction. You're talking about, if I'm doing the math in my head, you're talking about around a billion dollars total for the state. Instead, what you're doing for those who are making less than 500,000, or less than $100,000, is you're giving them, and the folks who are making slightly more, a $5.87 billion income tax reduction.

339. 1:03:28

     That's huge.

340. 1:03:28

     But, but why would we structure this to give a rate reduction to the wealthy? They need to be pla- paying taxes.

341. 1:03:35

     Senator, you're, you're, uh-

342. 1:03:37

     Yeah.

343. 1:03:37

     The rate reduction-

344. 1:03:38

     I almost feel like you-

345. 1:03:38

     ... is coming anyway-

346. 1:03:39

     Mm-hmm

347. 1:03:39

     ... uh, from, from the, the governor's office of the 4.99, but this, this is the addition of $100,000 exemption, which will help out the poor and the middle class. I-

348. 1:03:51

     If, if you vote against this bill, you're going to have to explain to someone that you voted against eliminating the income tax for families making less than 50,000, or for individuals, individuals making less than 50,000 and families making less than 100,000.

349. 1:04:03

     Well, there may be other bills that could do that without doing some of the things.

350. 1:04:06

     All right, we gotta, we gotta keep moving.

351. 1:04:07

     I have two more questions.

352. 1:04:08

     We, we gotta, we gotta move. I'm, I'm sorry, but we're, we're... Let's see, Senator Dolezal, you were next.

353. 1:04:16

     One out of-

354. 1:04:16

     I've got another committee that might wanna come in here, so I'm gonna tell them they can't. But, uh, I'll-

355. 1:04:21

     Thank you, Chairman. Uh, Chairman Tillery, walk me through, if you can, on the credit side, I heard about one point, I'm, just rough numbers, 1.5 billion or so, 1.5, 1.6.

356. 1:04:32

     I'm using the low-end numbers from one of our folks. We th- we actually think that it's higher than that. You're talking about needing to do a standard rate, a standard income deduction of 50,000 for individuals and for 100,000 for families, $3 billion. I think the credits are gonna total out to be closer than that. If you actually use the 2031, um, elimination overall, you're gonna be well over that number. So we're gonna have space to put tax credits back in that we think are beneficial, like the ones that Senator Hickman mentioned about rural hospitals, um, LESS Crimes Act, et cetera, that aren't gonna expire, by the way, that we can renew those, and we'll still be within our cost.

357. 1:05:13

     So 3 billion for the, the-

358. 1:05:15

     Raising standard deduction

359. 1:05:16

     ... the standard deduction. What's the cost for the rate reduction on corporate and in- individual?

360. 1:05:20

     That, that's gonna be not quite a billion, but close.

361. 1:05:24

     Okay. So we'll call it 4 billion total.

362. 1:05:25

     Yeah.

363. 1:05:28

     Walk me through the... The only thing I'm confused about with this is I'm hearing about 1.5 to 2.

364. 1:05:34

     Yeah. We, we don't-

365. 1:05:35

     But you think it's closer to 3?

366. 1:05:36

     Yeah, we do not pay for the governor's reduction that he proposed.

367. 1:05:40

     Got it.

368. 1:05:40

     We believe that that's built into the governor's revenue estimate already. We paid for our $3 billion walk down of 50,000, uh, eliminating the income tax on individuals making 50 and families making 100,000.

369. 1:05:52

     Got it.

370. 1:05:53

     We paid for that.

371. 1:05:53

     And the only people left paying taxes in this plan are people making ...

372. 1:05:58

     More than $100,000.

373. 1:05:58

     More than $100,000.

374. 1:06:00

     And they receive a $5,190 cost savings, other tax credits being, being what they are. So there is a chance, if you're making 150,000 and you've got children, you're gonna tile on your child tax credits-

375. 1:06:15

     Right

376. 1:06:15

     ... or what you received because you made a donation to rural health hos- rural hospitals, that you also would see your income tax be zero.

377. 1:06:21

     All right, Senator Still, we've got two more members with lights on-

378. 1:06:24

     Okay

379. 1:06:24

     ... then we're gonna look at some action. Go ahead, Senator Still.

380. 1:06:28

     Thank you, Chairman. Um, Chairman Tillery, uh, I'm gonna go back to something my former suite mate said about listening, um-

381. 1:06:38

     Slowly

382. 1:06:38

     ... slowly, uh, than, than you're talking. Can, uh, just because I don't know what these tax codes are and I'm, I'm just reading it and trying to wrap my head around it, on, uh, page 15, it lists several different, um, uh, amended by repealing and reserving paragraphs, and it lists out paragraphs-

383. 1:06:58

     Yeah

384. 1:06:58

     ... um, a- and code sections. Just high level overview, i- is there ... I know this is

385. 1:07:09

     pointing back to, um, things previously discussed, but without trying to beat a dead horse on anything, can you just give me a quick explanation on that?

386. 1:07:18

     Yeah. So some of these were credits that we talked about before in the bill.

387. 1:07:22

     Right.

388. 1:07:22

     Is those, the big ones, though, or the eliminations when you get to 36, 68 and 68.1, those relate to the clean rooms and the data centers.

389. 1:07:30

     Got it.

390. 1:07:30

     The other things that we took and did is we tried to apply, um, the five-year sunset provision to credits that did not already have that five-year sunset.

391. 1:07:41

     Got it.

392. 1:07:41

     So there were several. There were qui- there were quite a few. So we wanted to make sure we provided that. It doesn't eliminate them. It just stands them up for the same review by the Senate that we have every other income tax credit.

393. 1:07:52

     Perfect. Thank you.

394. 1:07:54

     All right, and then our majority leader.

395. 1:07:57

     Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to, um, thank Chairman Tillery for the work. Um, I want to reiterate a couple of things, just so for the record, I know we talked about during the committee as we were considering going through this process. Um, three specific things that basically this bill does not levy a new state property tax to replace the income tax. Is that not true, Chairman Tillery?

396. 1:08:20

     That is correct.

397. 1:08:21

     Um, the proposal will not raise or increase the sales tax on groceries.

398. 1:08:26

     It does not.

399. 1:08:27

     This does not create a new tax on seniors.

400. 1:08:30

     Unless they're buying data centers.

401. 1:08:32

     Yeah, that's true. I wish I knew one of them. Um, and then the proposal will not raise the state motor fuel tax, the gas tax, to replace the income tax.

402. 1:08:40

     It does not raise the mo- motor fuel tax at all.

403. 1:08:42

     All right. Thank you, sir.

404. 1:08:44

     It does not raise any sales tax.

405. 1:08:47

     Okay. Um, Senator Cowsert, I don't guess you've commented yet, so.

406. 1:08:52

     I, I've been punching my button, but my light's not coming on, so I'm gonna steal our CPA tax expert's microphone. Won't take me but a second. Make sure I understand, I'm gonna talk about Bill 477 first. Um, well, no, let's talk about 476 first, since numerically it comes first. If I understand it, for any single taxpayer, right now you get a 12,000 standard deduction, you're increasing it by 38,000.

407. 1:09:20

     Yes, sir.

408. 1:09:21

     So you're saving $1,900 per individual. And if you happen to be married, there's two of you, then it's, you know, gonna be twice that, right?

409. 1:09:30

     It, um-

410. 1:09:33

     Your 100, up to 100,000's the same as two times 50.

411. 1:09:36

     I think your, I think your savings would actually be more, though. So you're s- you're taking and pulling out the current standard deduction.

412. 1:09:41

     Okay.

413. 1:09:42

     I follow, follow your math on your current standard deduction.

414. 1:09:43

     'Cause everybody's getting that already, whether we pass this bill or not.

415. 1:09:46

     Correct.

416. 1:09:46

     You're not gonna pay tax on your first 12,000.

417. 1:09:48

     Correct.

418. 1:09:49

     So what you're helping is individuals between 12 and 50.

419. 1:09:53

     Right.

420. 1:09:53

     They now pay no tax, so that saves them $1,900. And then you're getting rid of corporate, basically, tax credits and some individual tax credits to pay for that.

421. 1:10:04

     Correct.

422. 1:10:05

     The other bill is the one where you reduce it another percent.

423. 1:10:10

     With triggers.

424. 1:10:11

     Down to 3.99.

425. 1:10:12

     Yes, sir. We hadn't talked about that one yet, but that's what 477 does.

426. 1:10:14

     If, if, if we get to that, then math is the same. Everybody up to the first 50,000 saved 1,900. Anybody making more than 50,000 saves an extra percent up to whatever their income is.

427. 1:10:26

     Correct.

428. 1:10:29

     So what happened to all the talk in the paper about zero income tax? It's just zero up to your first 50?

429. 1:10:34

     No, sir. The, the plan for the committee is to lay out a six-year plan to go to zero.

430. 1:10:40

     Okay.

431. 1:10:40

     What this lays out for you in 476 is year one and year two. What 477 lays out is the same, the triggers on, on revenue to reduce that back down to three, 3.99.

432. 1:10:50

     To get extra percent.

433. 1:10:51

     Correct.

434. 1:10:51

     So our best case scenario is we get free up to 50,000 and then down to 4% roughly.

435. 1:10:55

     Uh, no, sir. I think you'll see bills that continue after that as we see as revenue continues to trigger.

436. 1:11:00

     Okay.

437. 1:11:00

     Now, what we wanted to do is be prudent, 'cause you've heard everyone across the hall say, "Be prudent on these things. Be prudent." It's like, okay.

438. 1:11:08

     I think this is.

439. 1:11:09

     Well, if you want us to be prudent, we'll be prudent, but the plan from the Senate is still to be at zero in six years.

440. 1:11:16

     That'll take another bill to get us to four.

441. 1:11:17

     It would take another bill. But these are aggress- Uh, 476 is much more aggressive than 477, but they both put us on, on target to eliminate the state income tax in six years.

442. 1:11:28

     Thank you. Good work.

443. 1:11:29

     All right, I think everybody's had some comments, uh, on the committee. Um, we're looking at, uh, Senate Bill 476.

444. 1:11:38

     There's a gap I'm trying to figure out.

445. 1:11:39

     Um, that's LC 590312.

446. 1:11:42

     If you talk to-

447. 1:11:43

     And, um, that bill is now eligible for a motion.

448. 1:11:47

     That's the one you talk to, and I'll tell you what

449. 1:11:55

     All right, this is the time. Go ahead.

450. 1:11:57

     I'd make a motion that we, uh, to accept SB 476 and, um, LC 59-0312.

451. 1:12:08

     All right. Did you want to second it?

452. 1:12:09

     Yeah.

453. 1:12:09

     Senator Gooch is second to the motion. Okay. Um, we're at final discussion on this.

454. 1:12:19

     All in favor of it-

455. 1:12:20

     One, one, one last, one comment, if you don't mind. Just-

456. 1:12:23

     Okay

457. 1:12:23

     ... we, I mentioned it earlier. Chairman Tillery, could you provide the committee with the numbers that you went through earlier-

458. 1:12:29

     Sure

459. 1:12:29

     ... so we could have them, so we'll know what code section they refer to and what they're pertaining to?

460. 1:12:34

     Sure.

461. 1:12:34

     'Cause we'll have a lot of questions on this when we leave here. We all need to be educated on it as soon as possible. Thank you.

462. 1:12:39

     Mm-hmm.

463. 1:12:40

     All right.

464. 1:12:40

     Good work.

465. 1:12:42

     Um, Senator Orrock.

466. 1:12:43

     Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, uh, uh, uh, the, on the, on the h- uh, uh, housing, uh, low-income housing, uh, it, it's true that we have a housing crisis in Georgia, and so the, the, the, the, the, the, the, uh, low-income housing tax credit now is not producing the housing that we need as a state. So that's a real concern for me, and I don't know how you address that-

467. 1:13:13

     All right. I'd-

468. 1:13:13

     ... with this bill

469. 1:13:13

     ... I'd, I'd... We had a study that said the additional 50% did not increase it when we looked at it in the past.

470. 1:13:20

     Did not house

471. 1:13:21

     ... did not increase housing. But you're right, we have a housing problem. Multi-source. Is that, Senator Halpern, is that your number 12? Go ahead.

472. 1:13:28

     J- Just to comment that it would be great before we voted to actually have that additional information to be able to absorb it and know much better on what the code sections are you referred to, what the actual impact is on all these tax credits you want to eliminate, and especially as it relates to keeping Georgia competitive for the future, as part of our job is also to sow seeds for what the future of Georgia will be. So it, motion's on the table.

473. 1:13:58

     I'd like to just make the point. It'd be, from my standpoint, better not to take a vote before we have the full information in front of us. Thank you.

474. 1:14:06

     All right. I, I appreciate the concerns there. Any other discussion? Um, seeing none, all in favor, raise your hand. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Nine for and against. We've got three against. Motion carries. Um, you wanna do the companion House Bill-

475. 1:14:29

     I would like to, yes sir

476. 1:14:29

     ... that is exactly the same as this bill. But we put it under, we stripped the House Bill and put it in there so that that would satisfy the House requirements that it should be in a House Bill.

477. 1:14:39

     Um, thank you, Mr. Chairman. The House Bill 4... No, it's gonna be 1. The one, the first one, 134, is, um, we want to work with our-

478. 1:14:53

     We have some there

479. 1:14:53

     ... House colleagues. This is not something that... We know they're working on property tax. As you know, property taxes are not collected by the state. Um, a lot in the media have made a lot of fuss about the, the, we have to pick either property tax relief or income tax relief. That's simply not the case. And in an effort of good faith to show the House that we're not trying to run over any preconceived notion that only they can start, uh, tax credit bills, not just revenue bills-

480. 1:15:20

     Okay

481. 1:15:20

     ... that we have pulled House Bill 134 by Representative Camp and replaced the language with the Senate Bill that you just voted out, 476, and that's... Your questions on it would be the exact same. It's the exact same language. And I'd ask that out of an effort of good, in an effort of good faith and an olive branch to our friends in the House, that we, uh, would pass this bill as well.

482. 1:15:45

     Senator Gooch.

483. 1:15:53

     I, I would make the motion to, uh, do pass the substitute to House Bill 134, which is LC 59-03158 or 15S. So I'm making a motion to do pass.

484. 1:16:08

     134.

485. 1:16:08

     130-

486. 1:16:08

     134.

487. 1:16:09

     My number is w- 0315S.

488. 1:16:11

     Okay. That's great.

489. 1:16:12

     So it's to substitute House Bill 134.

490. 1:16:16

     Oh, I just... They did them.

491. 1:16:20

     Second to you. All right. Do we have a second on that? I'm sorry, my mic's off. Do we have a second?

492. 1:16:25

     Second.

493. 1:16:26

     Second by Senator Harbin. Um, any discussion? If not, all in favor, raise your hand. All right. And all opposed? Nine to three, vote again.

494. 1:16:37

     Can I just get that LC number one more time, Mr. Chairman? It's 59... What'd you say?

495. 1:16:43

     59-0315S.

496. 1:16:45

     That was it. Thank you.

497. 1:16:48

     All right. Um, you've got your other bill that we sort of talked about, but-

498. 1:16:52

     Yep

499. 1:16:53

     ... go ahead.

500. 1:16:54

     Um, keeping in the Senate's

501. 1:16:59

     vein of making sure we're providing relief to Georgia families, Senate Bill 477 adopts the governor's proposal to drop the state income tax rate. Well, it doesn't adopt. Sorry. That's in our first... The, it takes and assumes that the governor's income tax rate bill fa- passes, and then it triggers a drop from there to 4.49% in January 2027 and to four point, uh, and to 3.99% in January 1, 2028, based upon certain revenue triggers being hit.

502. 1:17:33

     Those revenue triggers in the past have been as revenue had to exceed 3%, uh, year over year. We reduced that to 1%. Again, if the state's bringing in more money, we think that money needs to roll back to middle-class families when they're feeling this, uh, increased crunch of gas, groceries, and childcare.

503. 1:17:53

     All right. Um, questions? Senator Orrock.

504. 1:17:57

     Thank you, Mr. Chair. To the author, um, it, that's line 28 that you're talking about on the, on page two. Is that right?

505. 1:18:05

     Yes, ma'am.

506. 1:18:06

     Um, the, the, the question I have is when we know that we have extensive waiting lists for people waiting for mental health services, developmental disability services, uh, and physical, uh, uh, uh, disability services, and when we have one of the weakest Medicaid programs in the country, uh, how, uh, w- why would we do that radical thing of having a, not have the, the, the revenue estimate, uh, uh, to have the governor's revenue estimate for the succeeding fiscal year is not, uh, uh, it, it, it would just take that 3% and reduce it, take it down to 1%.

507. 1:18:43

     Do we not, do we not need revenue in this state to meet the needs of people? Because, uh, you may give me, uh, uh, uh, with a bill, a, a, a, a, a cut in my taxes, but that, that is not sufficient for me to stand up a system to deliver services, uh, to children with autism, to children with dyslexia, to children with, uh, developmental disabilities or, or, uh, does it, uh, uh, that it, it leaves that unfunded, doesn't it?

508. 1:19:14

     Um-

509. 1:19:14

     Isn't that what we're doing here?

510. 1:19:15

     Uh, again, I, I would argue to you if the state's bringing in more revenue, that that revenue can best be spent by the people who sent it to begin with.

511. 1:19:24

     Well-

512. 1:19:24

     All right

513. 1:19:25

     ... but how, if I could follow up with one question, how does that person stand up a system to deliver services for, for, uh, a, a child with, uh, uh, intellectual or developmental disabilities? That, that little tax, uh, cut to that individual taxpayer does not allow them to purchase those services. So it leaves our state failing to provide services for which we have extensive waiting lists. Isn't that the case?

514. 1:19:49

     Well, Senator, you just called this a little tax cut. The bill before eliminated that person's income tax completely, and you voted against it. So I don't think you're gonna vote for this one.

515. 1:19:57

     Uh, well, I didn't, uh, that wasn't my question, whether I was gonna vote for it or not. My question is, why are we, uh, uh, uh, creating tax cuts, uh, under the, under the guise of, of relieving our middle class, when in fact we're not funding the needs of those families that are on those waiting lists, and they've been on those waiting lists for decades.

516. 1:20:21

     Senator, we've put over $2 billion into the DBHGD system-

517. 1:20:26

     Uh-huh

518. 1:20:26

     ... in the time that I've been chairman.

519. 1:20:28

     Uh-huh.

520. 1:20:28

     We have not neglected those needs. We are continuing to address those needs. You'll see the Senate, the House budget that's coming over to us, that we're working now on building more state hospitals to try to relieve, alleviate prison overcrowding that we're seeing because people have been found incompetent. We are working-

521. 1:20:43

     Great ex-

522. 1:20:44

     ... hard to meet-

523. 1:20:44

     Great example. Great example of high needs

524. 1:20:46

     ... the needs of our state

525. 1:20:47

     The prisons, the correction system. The correction system.

526. 1:20:48

     But Senator, you and I just have a simple difference in philosophy. You think the government can spend people's bu- money better than they can, and I think people can spend their money better.

527. 1:20:58

     I think the government can-

528. 1:20:59

     All right. This will be, this will be a four-

529. 1:21:00

     I think the government can do a better job of creating infrastructure to deliver services that families all across this state need than an individual can with their, uh, tax deduction.

530. 1:21:10

     All right. I, I, I know-

531. 1:21:11

     That's what I think

532. 1:21:11

     ... the senator's passionate, and I think you've made your point.

533. 1:21:13

     Thank you.

534. 1:21:14

     And, and we certainly respect it. Senator Hickman to... or is that Senator Cowsert?

535. 1:21:19

     Uh, Mr. Chairman, with, with your permission, I think we've pretty thoroughly discovered income, discussed the income tax rates, the impact and the fiscal impact. I, with your permission, I would move do pass on Senate Bill 477, LC 59-0311.

536. 1:21:36

     All right. We've got a, a motion by Senator, uh, Cowsert, a second by Senator Still. Um, any further discussion? All in favor, raise your hand. All opposed. Um, 9-3 vote again, and then I imagine you want to do this with a House bill too, don't you?

537. 1:21:57

     Uh, yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. You'd see House Bill 463 is also a bill that's in our committee. As we discussed previously, the House, uh, often tells us that tax cut bills are also revenue bills, even though they seem to be the antithesis of revenue bills. So we, uh, in an effort to defer to them, we would like to take and place the language that we just passed in House, Senate Bill 477 on House Bill 430, uh, 463 as a committee sub. It's LC 59-01, uh, 0316S.

538. 1:22:30

     All right. We got a motion on that from Senator Gooch, I believe.

539. 1:22:33

     Motion.

540. 1:22:35

     Second from our majority leader. All in favor, raise your hand. All opposed. All right. 9-3 vote. Motion carries. That's all the business for today. We ran slightly over.

541. 1:22:48

     Good job.

542. 1:22:49

     Um-

543. 1:22:50

     It's about the time.

544. 1:22:51

     Um-

545. 1:22:52

     Two, one.

546. 1:22:53

     It'll be Senator Tillery. Meeting adjourned.