When you "rebate" overpaid taxes by giving everyone $500, you are, in fact, redistributing the wealth.
I log onto our our "informed delivery" account and see that we have a letter coming from the Georgia Department of Revenue. Oh, boy, sure to be audited! We paid $0 in State taxes this year, and only a few hundred for the year before. Surely they were suspicious I was living on so little money!
But imagine my relief when it turned out to be a check for $500. I had forgotten about this, but there was a budget surplus in the State government, and instead of paving the damn roads, they decided to give every citizen back $250, or $500 for a married couple filing jointly.
In order to qualify, you must meet three criteria:
You may be eligible for the HB 162 Surplus Tax Refund if you:
- File your Individual Income Tax Return for tax year 2021 and tax year 2022 by the April 18, 2023 deadline (or by October 16, 2023 if an extension was granted)
- Had a tax liability for tax year 2021
- Are a Georgia resident, part-year resident, or nonresident
Since I paid no State income taxes for 2022, I may not qualify for a rebate next year. I should amend my return to pay at least $1 in order to qualify! You see how easy it is to game the system.
But the more I thought about this "refund" check, the more I thought, "This is SOCIALISM, people!" Andrew Yang might talk big about "Guaranteed Annual Income" - sending out checks to everyone for the same amount - but Governor Kemp is actually doing it, Statewide! And a Republican Governor, no less!
Hmm.... He stood up to Trump, too! Maybe he is just a RINO after all!
The sarcasm light is lit, by the way.
Yes, I am being facetious but then again, I am not. You see, the guy who makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and pays tens of thousands in Georgia State income tax (as I did, one year) is getting back a pittance, in terms of percentage of tax he paid. Meanwhile, the minimum wage earner, who paid only hundreds in taxes, gets back nearly all of his tax money - maybe more than he paid in. So long as you pay at least a dollar in taxes, you get this "rebate" check.
It is redistribution of wealth if you think about it. If the system were actually value-neutral, they would rebate everyone based on a percentage of their income or at least a percentage of their taxes paid. Both are messy calculations to make - the State computers would have to work overtime cranking these numbers. With regard to the latter, the marginal rate scheme would make these calculations even harder, and no doubt would trigger appeals from high-earners who would insist they are due more and that the calculations are wrong.
So they went with a simple system - $250 a head, so long as you filed a return and paid at least a buck in taxes and were a Georgia resident. Print dem damn checks!
But it is still socialism, but Republicans would never see it that way. They probably see it as a means of buying votes and showing voters how "fiscally responsible" they are. But if they were really fiscally responsible, they would budget better and not over-collect taxes. They would adjust the marginal rates accordingly. But they didn't and instead did this third-grade-math deal (Like Jethro, they's good at cipherin'!) instead.
Think of it this way: If the State of Georgia raised taxes to the point where they were giving every citizen in the State of Georgia a tax "rebate" of $1200 a month, how would that be different in any way from Andrew Yang's "guaranteed annual income" proposal? It isn't, of course. The only differences are in the size of the numbers - how much excess tax collected and the amount of "rebated."
So Georgia leads the way in Socialist thinking! And you no longer wonder why they call us a Blue State.
Sadly, my State taxes for 2022 are zero dollars, as I am living off retirement income (largely un-taxed) and had a huge loss on the Condo last year. So if they decide to "rebate" us next year, I will miss out on Gubment money. Maybe I should amend my return to "find" at least a dollar in taxes to pay. Just kidding - but you see how the game is played.
I just think it is hilarious that Republican lawmakers in Atlanta thought they were doing a very Republican thing by "rebating" taxpayers, but instead redistributed the wealth in a manner that would make Karl Marx proud.
Carry on, Comrade! All hail Kemp and Jones!
