ATLANTA — Legislators are trying again this year to get rid of the annual property tax on vehicle tags. They would replace it with a percentage sales tax charged on car titles.
That would mean that anyone who buys a car would pay 6.5 percent of the car’s cost when they title the car. But they wouldn’t pay ad valorem taxes to renew the tag each year, and they wouldn’t pay sales tax when they buy a car from a dealer.
There was a strong push to do this last year, and the enabling legislation, House Bill 480, passed the Georgia House of Representatives. The bill is in the state Senate now, and one of its more controversial parts has been stripped out to aid its passage, sponsoring state Rep. Harry Geisinger said Monday.
The bill used to cap the total amount anyone would pay on a car title at $2,000. Some legislators, and particularly Democrats, complained this would benefit the wealthy. That cap has now been removed, said Geisinger, R-Roswell. With that change in the bill, a new analysis will have to be done to see how much money the tax would raise. But Geisinger said it should raise more money than the previous sales taxes and property taxes put together.
That’s largely because it would capture taxes on so-called casual sales — sales from one person to another — that don’t generate sales taxes now.
The change is expected to generate so much new revenue, Geisinger said, that the state would be able to put $150 million a year into trauma funding to help fund hospital emergency rooms and expand care in rural Georgia.
To contact writer Travis Fain, call 361-2702.
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