Legislative ALERT!!!! - Local Collection of Sales Tax Issue Resurfaces

SENATE RULES COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN CALLS FOR RESTRAINT
GRA CAPITOL HILL ADVOCACY
• Bill Would Tax Plastic Bags
• Credit Card Processing Fees
QUOTE TO PONDER


Local Collection of Sales Tax Issue Resurfaces

We thought it was a dead issue for this year, but I have learned that the House Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee will hear testimony on June 26th on the local collection of sales tax revenue. Committee members will hear from an Alabama firm about privatizing sales tax collections here in Georgia.

I am asking for your help in letting committee members know that it is a bad idea to collect sales taxes at the county level. For a copy of the testimony which I have already sent to members of the committee please link to: http://www.georgiaretail.org/governmentaffairs/documents/LocalCollectionofSalesTaxTestimony.pdf


Please contact members of House Budget & Fiscal Affairs Oversight Committee

Earlier this year two bills were filed on this topic and, following some intelligent discussion about the unforeseen consequences that would be caused by enacting such legislation, both were laid aside by the Ways and Means Committee.

To refresh your memory those two bills appear below:

HB 458 – Local Collection Of Sales And Use Tax, sponsored by Allen Peake, (R) 137th, Chuck Sims, (R) 169th, Charles Martin, (R) 47th, Ron Stephens, (R) 164th, Margaret Kaiser, (R) 59th, and Virgil Fludd, (R) 66th, would allow any county or municipality to contract with a private contractor to administer, collect, and distribute any local or special district sales and use taxes.
http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2009_10/fulltext/hb458.htm

HB 356 – Local Collection of Sales and Use Taxes, sponsored by Virgil Fludd, (D) 66th, Calvin Smyre, (D) 132nd, DuBose Porter, (D) 143rd, and Margaret Kaiser, (D) 59th, would allow counties to hire private firms to collect sales and use taxes.
http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2009_10/fulltext/hb356.htm

Senate Rules Committee Chairman Calls for Restraint

On June 11, 2009, State Senator Don Balfour, Chairman for the Senate Rules Committee, had an editorial published in the Atlanta Journal Constitution calling for a restraint on raising taxes. In his editoral, Tough economy demands restraint, Balfour said, “Every government is seeing sharp declines in revenues. Just like American families sitting around their kitchen tables trying to cut back their budgets, government also must control spending by becoming more efficient. At a time when people are losing their jobs, businesses are shutting down and home values are plummeting, local government should do everything possible to avoid placing more hardship on its citizens. Whether you call it a revenue enhancement, balancing budgets, or by any other euphemism, a tax increase still amounts to more financial strain on the taxpayer. People do not have the ability to pay more for government services right now.”

GRA CAPITOL HILL ADVOCACY

Bill Would Tax Plastic Bags

HR 209, if enacted, would impose a retail tax of .05 cents which would increase to .25 cents in 2015 for single-use, carryout bags.

Credit Card Processing Fees (Interchange)

The Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2009 introduced in the Senate by Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, a democrat from Illinois, would require Visa and MasterCard to negotiate over hidden credit card processing fees that cost the average household more $400 a year and total more than $48 billion annually.

The measure is similar to legislation Durbin sponsored last year and would require Visa and MasterCard banks to negotiate over “interchange” fees that are currently imposed on merchants on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. If an agreement could not be reached, both sides would be required to submit their final offers to binding arbitration by a three-judge panel appointed by the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission.

Introduction of the Durbin bill comes less than a week after House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., introduced H.R. 2695, also called the Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2009. The Conyers bill would also require Visa and MasterCard banks to negotiate with merchants, but enforcement of the requirement would be up to the Justice Department rather than a three-judge panel.

Interchange is a fee averaging close to 2 percent that Visa and MasterCard banks charge merchants every time a credit card is used to pay for a transaction. Visa and MasterCard effectively force merchants to pass the fees on to consumers by requiring them to be included in the advertised price of merchandise and making cash discounts difficult. Interchange is largely unknown to most consumers because Visa and MasterCard keep merchants from disclosing it on receipts and don’t disclose the fees on consumers’ monthly statements.

Interchange collections totaled $48 billion in 2008, up from $16.6 billion when NRF started tracking the fees in 2001. The higher prices that result from the fees cost the average household an estimated $427 last year, up from $159 in 2001.

QUOTE TO PONDER

“Freedom is something that cannot be passed on in the blood stream, or genetically. And it's never more than one generation away from extinction. Every generation has to learn how to protect and defend it, or it's gone and gone for a long, long time. Already, many of us, particularly those in business and industry, there are too many who have switched rather than fight. And it's time that particularly, some of our corporations learned, that when you get in bed with government, you're going to get more than a good night's sleep." Ronald Reagan



Thank you,

John C. Heavener, MSM, CAE
President, Georgia Retail Association

For More Information Contact:
johnh@georgiaretail.org
Telephone – 770-484-3449, ext. 21
Toll Free - (877) 427-3824
Fax – 770-484-5727
www.georgiaretail.org

About GRA: The Georgia Retail Association, with membership that comprises all retail formats and channels of distribution including department, specialty, discount, catalog, Internet, independent stores, and grocery stores has been serving the state’s business community since 1961. The Georgia Retail Association represents an industry with more than 71,300 retail establishments, and more than 715,000 employees - about one in five of Georgia’s workers – with annual sales of more than $115 billion.

Printer Friendly CRR June 12, 2009