Important Issues Survive Crossover Day
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On Friday, March 3, the General Assembly concluded Crossover Day, legislative day 28 and the final day for a bill to make it out of the chamber in which it was introduced. ACCG commends its actively engaged membership of county staff and officials for their efforts in representing Georgia counties as a whole when called upon by the policy staff. By contacting your legislators and making your voices heard on important issues included in ACCG Action Alerts, the following critical issues had favorable outcomes on Crossover Day with only one unfavorable outcome:
Many significant bills that ACCG is following, including some legislative priorities, passed while there were other important pieces of legislation such as
HB 302- Notice Requirements for Property Tax Millage Rate - that did not. For the list of bills that did pass, access the
"This Week's Bills" button listed at the top right. Click
here to access the complete list of significant bills that did not pass Crossover Day.
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Bills Still Active That Require County Attention
The following bills remain active for the 2017 session and are critical pieces of legislation in which ACCG needs the assistance of county officials.
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SB 222, 911 Legislation, Now in House
SB 222 creates the Local Government 911 Authority that will provide coordination, planning, enforcement of statutory requirements for the payment of 911 fees, auditing, and development of best practices and standards for the operation of 911 centers.
Access the following links for more information:
section-by-section summary and
talking points. SB 222 is an ACCG legislative priority. Please contact your House members and encourage them to support this legislation.
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SB 2, the FAST ACT, Now in House Small Business Development Committee
SB 2, also known as the FAST Act, is now in the House Small Business Development Committee. This legislation mandates that cities and counties which either charge any regulatory fees (license or permit fees), or have any regulatory requirements, must establish a schedule for those fees and requirements. The schedule shall include timelines necessary for processing completed applications and a list of all documentation needed by applicants to meet regulatory requirements. Whenever the local government does not meet its deadline for acting on a "complete" application, the associated fees will be reduced by 10 percent for each 10 day period that the application is not acted upon. Several other requirements are also imposed. For more information, please click
here. Please contact members of the
House Small Business Development Committee and express any concerns you may have with this legislation.
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HB 181 - Availability of Sales and Use Tax Information to Local Governments
HB 181 allows counties and cities to obtain from the Georgia Department of Revenue (DOR) a list of vendors who are currently filing sales tax reports with DOR. This legislation would also authorize counties and cities to request that DOR verify whether particular vendors’ sales tax receipts are properly credited to the correct jurisdiction. While such information would be required to be kept confidential and only discussed in executive session, obtaining even this limited information will allow counties to bring potential issues to DOR’s attention and limit the potential of future errors in sales tax payments.
Currently, counties have very little ability to determine whether the sales tax payments received from DOR are accurate and whether sales tax payments from vendors are being allocated to the correct jurisdictions. There have been several situations where, for months or years, sales taxes have been sent to the wrong counties. Once discovered by DOR, the correction of such mistakes results in refunds being deducted from future sales tax payments to the counties that (without their knowledge) have been receiving funds they should not have. Such unforeseeable deductions can have major impacts on those counties' budgets. Please contact your senators and encourage them to support this legislation.
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HB 340 - Changes to TAVT Distribution Formula
HB 340 proposes to make substantial changes to the distribution of Title Ad Valorem Tax (TAVT) by shifting more of those revenues from the state to local governments over the next several years. HB 340 makes several other changes to TAVT, such as changing the calculation of TAVT for leased vehicles, vehicles being registered in the state for the first time as people move into the state, and raising the TAVT on used car sales to match the TAVT formula for new car sales.
More information on HB 340 can be found
here. Please contact your senators and encourage them to support this legislation.
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Click on "This Week's Bills" to review the bills included in this week's Legislative Update.
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Access the Legislative Tracking Database for a compilation of all bills ACCG is following.
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