(The Center Square) – Eliminating Georgia’s income tax is one of the top priorities of the Freedom Caucus, state Sen. Colton Moore told The Center Square at the State Freedom Caucus Foundation held in Dallas.
“It is the government acting like the mafia and saying, ‘Hey you know you made some money. We want to take our fair share of it or go to jail,"” Moore, R-Trenton, said of the income tax. “We don’t like mafia rule, and ultimately, we want to grow our economy.”
Moore called Georgia the “empire state of the South.”
“We’ve got one of the largest ports on the East Coast,” Moore said. “We’ve got the world’s busiest airport. We’ve got all these great resources but the government stands in the way of a lot of ultimate vitality for our citizens.”
A Senate committee is studying ways to eliminate the state’s income tax.
Georgia’s southern and northern neighbors, Florida and Tennessee, already do not have a state income tax, along with seven other states. North Carolina and South Carolina lawmakers are working toward zero, Grover Norquist, president and cofounder of Americans for Tax Reform, told the committee at a meeting on Aug. 19.
Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, who chairs the committee, said the “die has been cast” when it comes to taking the income tax to zero.
“We will be going to zero or there will be other people in these seats taking the state income tax to zero,” he said.
