The current House substitute to this bill, LC 34 4943S, is a MAJOR revision of the MARTA tax and TSPLOST. The bill no longer contains any provisions regarding fireworks, although the summary for that version appears at the end of this new summary. 

The new transportation funding version of this bill does many things, including:

1) The City of Atlanta ONLY is allowed to levy an ADDITIONAL MARTA tax up to .50%, that will run concurrently with the existing 1% MARTA tax, if approved in a referendum.

2) The current single county TSPLOST is now available ONLY to counties which are not "metropolitan county special districts". In other words, this TSPLOST is available to all counties EXCEPT Fulton. This TSPLOST continues to not count towards the 2% local sales tax cap.

3) 159 special districts are created and a new TSPLOST at the rate of up to .75% is allowed for each special district that constitutes a "metropolitan county special district" defined as a county in which the 1% MARTA tax is currently levied AND in which 80% or more of the geographic area is made up of qualified municipalities (meaning a qualified municipality for SPLOST purposes). So the reality is this TSPLOST is for Fulton County ONLY. This new TSPLOST will not count towards the 2% local sales tax cap.

4) 159 special districts are created and yet another new TSPLOST at the rate of up to .75% is allowed for each special district that constitutes a "metropolitan municipality special district" defined as a city in which the 1% MARTA tax is currently levied AND in which 15% or more of the geographic area is made up of a metropolitan county special district. The second condition is meaningless since the City of Atlanta is the ONLY city allowed to levy the MARTA tax under the MARTA local constitutional amendment. So the reality is this TSPLOST is for Atlanta ONLY. This new TSPLOST will not count towards the 2% local sales tax cap.

THE FOLLOWING NO LONGER PERTAINS TO THE BILL: 

Prior to the House substitute, this legislation did not allow local governments to determine the hours of fireworks usage, which ACCG continues to advocate.  However, the bill makes several significant and beneficial changes to Georgia's fireworks law, including limiting the usage of fireworks from between 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., extended to 11:59 p.m. on January 1, July 3, July 4 and December 31, and until 1 a.m. on New Year's Day.  Local governments may extend these hours at their discretion.  Areas prohibited from usage are extended, and local governments determine whether to permit usage on their public property. There are various changes to the licensing of fireworks vendors, and local governments are clearly authorized to enforce state fireworks laws.