Handful of new laws to take effect in Georgia this weekend

However a smattering of recent legal guidelines enacted throughout the 2022 legislative session will kick on this Sunday, Jan. 1, together with a invoice making it simpler for meals vans to do enterprise and several other new or expanded tax credit.

The meals truck laws does away with a present requirement in Georgia legislation that meals truck operators receive a allow and inspection in each county the place they do enterprise.

“Nearly all meals vans function in a number of counties,” stated Tony Harrison, board president of the Meals Truck Affiliation of Georgia. “Which means a number of permits and costs. It’s simply insane.”

Underneath Home Invoice 1443, which members of the Normal Meeting handed unanimously final March, meals truck operators want solely notify county well being departments after they open for enterprise of their communities.

“We would not have to undergo all of the paperwork and costs,” Harrison stated. “We’ve already seen a rise in meals vans popping up earlier than the legislation has even taken impact.”

Whereas the tax credit score payments technically turned efficient final summer time, they don’t actually turn out to be actuality till New Yr’s Day, the start of the tax 12 months.

Three of the measures create new revenue tax credit.

Home Invoice 424 will present a tax credit score to Georgia taxpayers who contribute to nonprofit organizations that assist foster youngsters about to age out of the foster care system. Greater than 700 younger women and men age out of the system every year.

Senate Invoice 361, which was championed by Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, will present a dollar-for-dollar revenue tax credit score on contributions to public security initiatives within the taxpayer’s group. Legislation enforcement businesses will be capable to use the cash for police officer wage dietary supplements, to buy or preserve division gear and/or to ascertain or preserve a co-responder program.
 
Senate Invoice 87, the Jack Hill Veterans’ Act, honors the late state Sen. Jack Hill of Reidsville, who died in 2020. It offers revenue tax credit in alternate for contributions to scholarships for service-disabled veterans by way of the Technical Faculty System of Georgia Basis.
 
The Normal Meeting additionally expanded Georgia’s rural hospital tax credit score by way of Home Invoice 1041, which will increase the annual statewide cap on the credit score from $60 million to $75 million. Rural hospital directors and this system’s legislative supporters initially sought to boost the cap to $100 million however had been compelled to accept the decrease determine.
 
Fiscal conservatives within the Normal Meeting have launched efforts lately to convey nearer scrutiny to Georgia’s tax credit to make sure they’re definitely worth the hit to state tax revenues.
 
However tax credit that incentivize taxpayers to contribute towards widespread causes that want monetary assist have tended to outlive unscathed, stated Kyle Wingfield, president and CEO of the Georgia Public Coverage Basis.
 
“There don’t appear to be a complete lot of issues with them,” Wingfield stated.
 
One other invoice that can take impact on Sunday, Senate Invoice 332, also called the Inform Customers Act, is geared toward stopping criminals from promoting items stolen from retail shops on any on-line advertising platform. It establishes monetary and call data necessities for high-volume sellers to on-line marketplaces and requires such platforms to ascertain an possibility for customers to report suspicious exercise.
 
“Right here in Georgia, we are going to do all the things attainable to curb crime and make life troublesome for many who break the legislation,” Gov. Brian Kemp stated final Might as he signed the invoice. “We’re dealing one other blow to the organized gangs that steal from Georgia retailers and shops by making it a lot more durable for them to revenue from their heists.”