“The things that we heard here today resonate with things that we heard in other cities around the state,” said A.D. Frazier from Mineral Bluff, who chairs the council.
Eric Puglisi, a retired teacher and vice president of the Bartow County Farm Bureau, told the council during a public comment session in Rome Tuesday night that the estate tax is killing farmers and small businesses across Georgia.
“If we don’t overcome this death tax, it’ll be the death of this state,” Puglisi said. “I paid only $10 an acre for my farm when I bought it. If I die today and they say it’s worth $10,000 an acre, my son if he wants to farm has to come up with 55 percent of the new value of the farm. Why would he want to stay in farming?”
About 100 people attended the session, the sixth in the state, meant to give the public a chance to present their ideas for reforming the state’s tax system.
The appointed council — made up of economists, tax professionals and business leaders — has been charged with submitting recommendations for revisions to the state’s tax code at the beginning of the 2011 legislative session.
Bill Nutt, a Polk County farmer, spoke for the Georgia Cattlemen’s Association.
“We’re capital intensive, there’s a lot of hard work. The inputs are stratospheric in costs sometime. Some of the fertilizer inputs have gone through the ceiling,” Nutt said. “Feed, seed, fertilizer, energy costs are another big item.”
He encouraged the council to continue sales tax exemptions for those critical costs elements that go into the production of farm products.
John Lowrey, president of the Floyd County Farm Bureau and an Armuchee farmer, also spoke on behalf of the input exemptions for farmers.
“It’s important that Georgia not tax productive activity,” said Lowrey. “Taxing production inputs would be a disincentive to production, whether it is manufacturing, farming or any other enterprise.”
Lowrey said that over the last four years, if he were required to pay taxes on seed, chemicals, equipment, fertilizer and feed, it would have cost himself almost $100,000 a year. “I urge you to be especially careful that new taxes do not injure businesses that are already providing jobs for Georgians,” said Lowrey.
James E. “Jet” Toney, a lobbyist for the Georgia Affordable Housing Coalition, spoke on behalf of continuing state tax credits for low-income housing. Toney said that since 2000, the tax credit has helped fund more than 12,600 units, more than 55 percent outside the city of Atlanta. “For every tax credit dollar, $8.36 of economic development is derived downstream,” according to Toney.
Summerville builder Jerry Braden, who attended the session with Toney, told the council, “In more rural areas, you could not get funding anywhere else.”
Ed Schleper, a corporate executive at Mohawk, told the panel that Georgia has lost more non-farm jobs than 48 other states. “Mohawk’s ability to invest in new technology, to secure the jobs of our existing workforce and to hopefully expand in Georgia will depend on the company being the low cost manufacturer and I’m concerned that we’re losing our ability in that regard,” said Schleper.
He said the council’s work could not come at a more important time for Mohawk and most other major manufacturers.
“Taxing business inputs is counterproductive to the goal of encouraging investment and economic growth,” Schleper said.
Rome Mayor Wright Bagby told members of the council that collection of sales taxes and compliance is the number of one issue to the city.
“We feel like we can do a much better job ourselves,” said Bagby. “There are many people that are paying sales tax that is not getting remitted and there are others that are not paying it and it’s known about. We think it can be fixed.”
The notion of some sliver of people accumulating all the wealth is just silly.
That said, the estate tax is not a state issue so whatever its merits the tax shouldn't be part of the GA tax commission's public hearings.
If the 2009 estate tax structure is reinstated, your small business would have to be worth over $7 million and your small farm over $9 million (under current use rules) to pay any estate tax.
The 'death tax' makes it sound like everyone pays it when they die. That is not true. Almost no one pays it!
The wealthiest 1% of people pay 72% of the estate tax; the remaining quarter of the estate tax total is paid by the next 4% of the citizens.
You have to be very, very, very wealthy to owe estate tax.
So, 5% of the people have gotten 95% of the people riled up about a tax they don't pay. That does help the wealthy 5% avoid paying their share of the cost of civilization.
I call the estate tax the 'opportunity tax' because it keeps a very few people from cornering all the money and effectively changing the character of our society by eliminating the opportunity for others to better themselves. It helps keep the US from becoming a banana republic.
The estate tax raises about $30 billion per year. We can levy the estate tax on the richest 5% of the population or we can raise taxes by $30 billion on everyone else.
So, don't worry about the 'opportunity tax' until you and your wife have $7 million. And, don't be fooled by those who tell you the estate tax will break you. You are not likely to be that wealthy.
Michael L. Reynolds