ATLANTA — The Georgia Senate passed a measure Tuesday that would reduce homeowner property taxes by creating a new sales tax in exchange.
House Bill 1116 came from the House as a cap on property tax valuation increases.
The Senate’s amended version would create new special taxing districts overlayed on county lines, and those districts could implement a 1% sales tax. The revenue would go toward reduction of homeowner property taxes.
The bill would also generally prohibit revenue increases from property taxes of more than 3% or the federal Consumer Price Index, whichever is greater.
Homeowners would benefit most from the combined effect of the cap and the sales tax, said Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, who presented the bill on the Senate floor. But he said properties without a homestead exemption would benefit too.
“Just about every city and county would eliminate their homeowner property taxes. … And the rest of city and county taxes would be eliminated in some counties and reduced in other counties.”
Hufstetler said property taxes have been rising at an unsustainable rate.
“Our citizens who have to live within their means are frustrated,” he said.
Democrats criticized the measure, saying sales taxes consume a larger portion of the household budgets of lower-income people. They also said renters would not enjoy the same benefit from the property tax rollbacks as would homeowners.
“We are choosing to say that the people who own homes really are more important,” said Sen. Sonya Halpern, D-Atlanta.
The Senate’s amended version of HB 1116 passed in a party-line 31-19 vote.
The bill returns to the House. The version that chamber passed in early March sought to restrain property value increases for taxation purposes at 3% a year or the federal Consumer Price Index, whichever is greater.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat, an initiative of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
