Georgia GOP Raising Taxes On Girl Scout Cookies While Cutting Taxes On Foreign Corporations

By Alex Seitz-Wald

Like many states, Georgia is facing a budget shortfall. To address the problem, the legislature is considering a bill that wouldexpand the tax base by doing things like reinstating a sales tax on food and raising the tax on gasoline.

Many Georgians would be adversely affectedby the tax hikes on basic commodities, including the Girl Scouts, who are worried about the “significant financial impact” the bill would have on the revenue they raise through cookie sales, which would now be subject to sales tax. Over the weekend, Marilyn Midyette, the CEO of Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta, sent an email to supporters warning them that the new tax on their cookies “would take money away from Girl Scout programs“:

This significant financial impact would take money away from Girl Scout programs, camp support, financial aid and proceeds from the sale that support troop activities and community service projects.

…[P]lease contact your State House Representative and State Senator TODAY and express your concern in a courteous, Scout-like manner about our Scouts being taxed. Please reference House Bill 385. Sample letters have been provided on the left to make it easy to copy and paste into your own email. There are sample letters for girls as well as for parents and volunteers.

But while Girl Scouts and anyone who buys groceries and gasoline is forced to sacrifice, domestic and foreign corporations in Geogia are being lavished with a tax break. The same bill that raises taxes on Girl Scouts Cookies lowers tax rates on corporate income, from 6 percent this year to just 4 percent in 2014:

(a)(1)(A) For any taxable year beginning prior to January 1, 2012, every Every 967 domestic corporation and every foreign corporation shall pay annually an income tax 968 equivalent to 6 percent of its Georgia taxable net income. [...]

975 (D) For any taxable year beginning on or after January 1, 2014, every domestic 976 corporation and every foreign corporation shall pay annually an income tax equivalent 977 to 4 percent of its Georgia taxable net income

Beyond Girl Scout cookies, taxes on food and gasoline are highly regressivedisproportionately affecting lower and middle class consumers, who spend a larger share of their limited income on necessities like groceries than do people with higher disposable incomes.