Ga. Sen. Albers introduces bill to eliminate TSPLOST tax penalty

ATLANTA — Sen. John Albers, R- Roswell, today introduced a bill to reduce the financial burden on local governments who failed to pass the Transportation Special Purpose Local Options Sales Tax (TSPLOST) referendum.

If passed, Senate Bill 73 will effectively remove the TSPLOST “penalty provision,” which requires local governments who rejected the TSPLOST to pay more for transportation grants.

“Taxing any one part of Georgia simply because they did not pass a tax increase is un-American,” Albers said in a statement. “This is unfortunately the case for 113 counties across the state that voted against the TSPLOST tax.”

Prior to Sen. Albers’ election to the Georgia Senate, the General Assembly passed the Transportation Investment Act in 2010. The Transportation Investment Act (TIA) authorized the establishment of 12 special transportation districts to oversee the development, implementation and oversight of various transportation-related projects throughout the state. In addition, the TIA provided the mechanism that authorized counties in each region to hold a transportation referendum.