The Republican leaders of Georgia’s Senate will push to reduce both income and property taxes while targeting other cost-of-living issues during a legislative session that will be influenced by election-year politics.
Senate leaders gave a brief outline of their priorities at the Capitol Tuesday, the second day of their 40-day session.
Last week, a high-priority Senate study committee wrapped up its work, issuing a recommendation to eliminate the state income tax by 2032, with gradual cuts starting in 2027. And on that same day, House Speaker Jon Burns, a Republican from Newington, announced his plans to pare back local property taxes.
On Tuesday, the Senate majority leader, Dallas Republican Jason Anavitarte, said his chamber’s caucus “can and will do everything in our power” to embrace both approaches to bring down costs for taxpayers.
He also said Republican senators would target institutional investors who “gobble up” houses then resell them, driving up prices for regular homebuyers while “Wall Street billionaires” profit.
The Senate will also consider ways to expedite building permits, he said. Developers criticized local building departments for causing expensive delays during a hearing in November, but local officials said developers were filing sloppy plans that slowed the review process.
Both the Senate and the House are also interested in improving literacy. Burns said last week that he wanted to see literacy coaches in every elementary school, and Anavitarte said Tuesday that the Senate wanted to provide resources to address the concern.
Anavitarte also mentioned resources for foster children and to combat chronic absenteeism, also the subject of a Senate study committee last year. Also on the agenda are “guardrails” around technology accessible by children including artificial intelligence, he said.
The senators did not offer much detail about how they would accomplish their goals. Property taxes fund about half the cost of public education, so curbing school districts’ authority to raise tax revenue could result in service cuts.
Anavitarte said some school districts were flush with money while others were broke, and “we have to figure out what is that right balance.” He had a similar answer about how to curb institutional residential investors: “I think we have to address the balance and there will be more to come on that.”
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