Lawmakers chalk up wins, losses
The General Assembly passes a tax cut but fails to address surprise medical bills.
Local lawmakers are starting to sort through the wins and losses of this year’s Georgia General Assembly session that ended late Thursday in a flurry of votes.
Two House bills addressing sales and income tax parity stand out for Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, who sponsored them in the Senate.
HB 61 requires online retailers to collect sales tax from Georgia residents, flipping the current law that directs residents to pay it directly to the Department of Revenue.
HB 811 allows the DOR to use data analytics firms to identify taxpayers who aren’t paying the state income tax they owe.
“This has the potential to bring in $1 billion annually to both local governments and the state,” Hufstetler said Saturday. “By broadening the tax base and collecting what is owed, the state of Georgia will be able to follow the first income tax cut in history with additional tax cuts.”
The income tax cut was a highlight for Rep. Christian Coomer, R-Cartersville, the majority whip in the chamber where the bill originated.
Under HB 918, the standard deduction is doubled this year and, starting in 2019, the top rate will drop to 5.75 percent from 6 percent. If confirmed by the Legislature, the rate is slated to fall to 5.5 percent in 2020.
Coomer also praised the budget, which fully funds the state’s K-12 Quality Basic Education Act formula “for the first time ever.”
The QBE funding, an additional $167 million going to local school systems next year also was a top pick for Rep. Eddie Lumsden, R-Armuchee, and Rep. Katie Dempsey, R-Rome.
“That’s the best, in my mind,” Dempsey said. “It’s such an incredibly great budget for children, and for mental health. It touches everyone.”
Lumsden touted the distracted driving bill, which will ban the use of cellphones by drivers. An insurance agent and retired Georgia State Patrol trooper who lost a child to a drunk driver,
Lumsden campaigned tirelessly for the legislation.
“With a 34 percent increase in fatalities over two years, it’s really a no-brainer,” he said. “If you look at data in states where it’s already enacted, we’re talking about saving about 300 lives a year in Georgia — not to mention the lives that have been altered by these wrecks.”
Gov. Nathan Deal has through May 8 to sign the bills, veto them or let them become law without his signature.
There were some glaring disappointments, however, such as the failure to address so-called surprise medical bills, cited by both Lumsden and Hufstetler.
“We’ve worked for about three years on the issue,” Lumsden said. “There were two competing bills ... one was supported by consumers and one by medical groups, but they couldn’t find common ground. I don’t think it’s going away, though.”
Hufstetler sponsored legislation that would have included caps on what out-of-network providers could charge in addition to the requirement in the House bill that patients be told the cost up front.
“Despite SB 359 passing the Senate 52 to 0, we were not able to reach a compromise with the House,” Hufstetler said.
Dempsey called it “unusual”
that a number of health-related measures stalled at the last moment, when the two chambers typically work to perfect each other’s bills.
However, two of hers — a data-sharing initiative and a pilot program for bariatric treatment of obesity — “we could perhaps make work without legislation,” she said.
Coomer expressed disappointment that his HB 999 closing a mental health loophole in Georgia gun law died in the Senate.
“Current law allows a person who has been involuntarily committed to still get a carry license without revealing that hospitalization,” he noted.