All throughout the summer, fall and winter months the Senate held special study committee hearings on tax exemptions to thoroughly review tax credit/exemption programs to weigh a return on investment, whether the programs are working, and whether they should (or should not) be continued. An output of these hearings is S.B. 328 by Sen. John Albers (R-Alpharetta), which seeks to eliminate three of the tax credit plans these hearings analyzed (drivers’ education, diesel and a transportation fringe tax credit). This bill received a hearing in the Senate Finance Committee on January 24th. This bill was passed out of the committee and now heads to the full Senate for a vote (and of note, where anything could be amended onto the bill to change it – so that debate will be watched closely).
Beyond this bill, more analysis on other tax credit programs is expected. This issue will continue to be monitored closely to prevent negative impact to the industry.
The above bill is just one of more than 130 tax bills (as of press time) of note to credit unions in the state Legislature, and more will be introduced over the next 30 days of the session. Tax changes (as well as TAVT auto tax changes as the ones in the adjacent article) have been attempted over the past several sessions, and require credit unions to consistently monitor hearings, bills and lobby legislators to protect credit unions.
