This legislation makes changes related to property in a Forest Land Protection Covenant (FLPA), the Department of Revenue Performance Review Boards and the interest owed on taxes due after an appeal is settled.

This bill provides for the continuation of Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) for counties and cities that relied on judicial arbitration to settle their dispute over LOST distributions. This past fall, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled the judicial arbitration unconstitutional.

This bill makes substantial revisions to state and local title ad valorem tax. These revisions include:

• Establishes the trade-in value of a used vehicle at the department of revenue book value to prevent inflating trade-ins to reduce TAVT;
• Defines the taxable value of a kit car;
• Clarifies when a tax commissioner may deviate from the defined taxable value;
• Provides for a new trade-in credit for leased vehicles;
• Requires the Department of Revenue to promulgate a standardized bill of sale;
• Requires used vehicle dealers to file the title work and TAVT on behalf of their customer;
• Specifies a county administrative fee of 1% on TAVT collected for cities and the school system;
• Increases the penalty for failing to title and register a vehicle from a misdemeanor to a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature;
• Authorizes the transfer of a vehicle through a divorce decree or court order to be treated as a family transfer;
• Clarifies that a motor vehicle dealer can apply for a refund on behalf of a purchaser and must pay the refund to the purchaser within 10 days of receipt;
• Extends the expiration date of a temporary tag to 45 days and authorizes a 30 day extension when a title is delayed due to the failure of a security interest or line holder to timely release the security interest or lien;
• Clarifies electronic title registrations must be filed with the county instead of the Department of Revenue

This bill makes several changes to the ad valorem tax laws.

• Requires forestland protection grants for 2008 to be based upon the final value once an appeal is settled;
• Before an appeal can be filed in Superior Court, the legislation authorizes the payment of the temporary tax bill as an alternative to payment of the amount of taxes that were paid in the year a final tax bill was determined;
• Reinstates appeal thresholds that cannot be exceeded in order to get digest approval;
• Gives the Commissioner the authority to reject a tax digest if evidence exists that the county has substantially failed to comply with the ad valorem tax laws or the Department's rules and regulations;
• Authorizes owners of nonhomestead property with a value of $2 million or more to pay a portion of the temporary tax bill to an escrow account held by the tax commissioner until the appeal is settled;
• Consolidates the provisions that define the amount of interest due once an appeal is settled into a single subsection;
• Changes the eligibility to request a refund of paid taxes or license fees from a case where it has been determined that the tax or fee was illegally erroneously collected to an allegation that the tax or fee was illegally or erroneously collected;
• Redefines the authorized time frame for submitting a refund request to the governing authority and filing suit in court for a refund;

This legislation allows businesses that located in areas next to federal military installations that had a 15% or higher poverty rate before the 2010 census, but have since been redrawn out of that census tract to still qualify for income tax credits.

This bill makes several changes to tax executions including: adding a due diligence requirement for notifying taxpayers of unpaid taxes and the issuance of an execution; changing the time when a tax execution may be transferred; and eliminating the fee for collecting a tax execution.  Please discuss this bill with your tax commissioner.

While this legislation changes the state income tax credit for certain entertainment production companies, it impacts counties by extending or reinstating several sales tax exemptions. The legislation reinstates the sales tax exemption on food and food ingredients sold to a food bank through 2016. It reinstates the sales tax holiday and the energy efficient product tax holiday for 2014 and 2015. It further extends the sales tax exemption on personal property used for and in the construction of a competitive project of regional importance through June of 2016. The projected fiscal impact statewide on local governments is approximately $44.45 million per year. These exemptions arose out of the Governor's Competitiveness Initiative Committee that met during the interim. ACCG opposed the reinstatement of both sales tax holidays.