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You’ll pay new 1¢ ESPLOST at grocery checkoutTue, 11/11/2008 - 4:44pm
By: The Citizen
The Fayette School Board ESPLOST (Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax) passed last week. So what does it mean for you? Like 1-cent SPLOST taxes in other communities, and like the Fayette County Transportation SPLOST, the basic distinction between those and Georgia sales tax comes at the grocery store check-out line. There will be an extra penny tacked onto every purchase for which you already pay state sales tax. And you’ll pay the extra penny also for items not now subject to the state sales tax. Fayette voters Nov. 4 passed the education SPLOST that carries a maximum ceiling set at $115 million to be collected over five years. Collections begin in April 2009, with the first disbursements from the state expected in June, said school system Comptroller Laura Brock. So beginning in April, shoppers in the county’s grocery stores purchasing foods to prepare at home and items such as baby food, spices and a wealth of other grocery offerings will pay an additional penny tax on each dollar. Such groceries are exempt from state sales tax. Items such as alcohol and tobacco are not exempt. There are other types of purchases that are exempt from both state sales tax and SPLOST taxes. Some of those items include prescription drugs and a number of medical devices such as hearing aids, oxygen, insulin delivery systems, prescription glasses and contact lenses, wheelchairs for the permanently disabled and many prosthetic devices. Also exempt from state and SPLOST taxes are labor charges on a variety of services, provided that labor and parts charges are itemized separately on the bill. Regarding the education SPLOST and Fayette losing a 1-cent advantage with shoppers, Virginia Gibbs, president of the Fayette Chamber of Commerce, said the organization had not performed an analysis of communities that added an additional SPLOST, essentially leveling the sales tax playing field with surrounding communities. Matt Forshee, CEO of the Fayette County Development Authority, said the impact on local industry likely will only be on products purchased in Fayette County such as office supplies and the like. But most Fayette industries purchase materials out of county so they won’t be affected in that way by the ESPLOST, Forshee said. “I don’t think it’s going to have much of an impact locally on our industry,” Forshee said. The other big impact will be from industrial employees who dine in Fayette on their lunch breaks, he added. A survey of the long list of state sales tax-exempted items is surprising, if not mind-boggling. Exempt from state sales tax, for example, is the sale of sugar for use as a food to honey bee producers, the sale of crab bait to licensed commercial fishermen and agricultural machinery used to process onions for sale. For a complete list of Georgia sales tax-exempt items click here. login to post comments |