Reimagining Revenue: How Georgia’s Tax Code Contributes to Racial and Economic Inequality

NOTE: The Executive Summary, though right in totality of spirit, wrongly equates racial and economic inequality {with regard to tax and revenue measures that were enacted} to a starting point in 2009, which entirely wrong.

It actually began in the 1980s (taxation and revenue measures) and continued forward. It’s foundation was based on clandestine nationalist policies of the 1970s, but really built out and became robust in inequality in the 1980s ...

The verbiage is hidden in plain sight by the way it is worded; but the ‘inequality’ piece of taxation and revenues did not start in 2009. It was already in full play two to three decades before that period in Georgia history.***

QUOTE: "From the 18th century to the present day, state taxation policies have regularly contributed to worsening income inequality, with the bulk of tax and revenue measures enacted from the Great Recession of 2009 to the present day (2021)*** also primarily benefitting wealthy interests and corporations while harming the state’s lowest-income residents, who are most likely to be people of color. 

The structure of Georgia’s revenue system—which primarily relies on the personal income tax and sales and use tax—remains extremely outdated. 

Although Georgia’s tax laws no longer explicitly mention race or ethnicity, state fiscal policy is not neutral with respect to how Georgians of different races fare when calculating the amount and type of taxes paid, or the ways those tax dollars are ultimately used by government.

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