by Ty Tagami | Oct 21, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — The Georgia Senate will vote on another income tax cut next year, and the only question is how big, the chamber’s budget-writing chief said Tuesday.
“The plan is not to wait until after an election to put this bill on the floor of the Senate. The plan is to move this bill forward next year,” said Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, at the close of a hearing on the topic Tuesday afternoon in Gainesville.
Tillery, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is leading a study committee on eliminating the state income tax. The panel had previously heard from experts and officials from other states that have eliminated their income tax, including Florida and Tennessee.
On Tuesday, Tillery and his fellow lawmakers held their third hearing in a cafe, where taxpayers got a chance to speak.
A mother of a toddler quizzed them on the cost of diapers and baby formula. A retired firefighter talked of firefighters working multiple jobs to make ends meet. And Gainesville Police Chief Jay Parrish said it is difficult to recruit trained officers from other states when they can work in neighboring states that lack an income tax.
Georgia relaxed its training standards for experienced officers, Parrish said, but it was not enough to ease recruiting.
“We thought that is a win until we realized that we are competing in these other states with Tennessee and with Florida,” he said. “Because police chiefs in those states can offer that there’s no state income tax.”
Democrats on the committee said cutting income taxes could cause increased reliance on other revenue, such as sales taxes.
Sen. Michael ‘Doc’ Rhett, D-Marietta, warned of the impact on low wage earners.
“We want to make sure before we move forward with something like this that the money that’s going out also has to be coming in and not be a burden to the working person, not be regressive,” he said.
A regressive tax places a higher burden on the income of low-wage earners than on high-income earners, economists say.
Republicans countered that any reduced revenue caused by income tax cuts could be made up by eliminating corporate tax credits or by charging tourists more for “consumption” in Georgia. They also said Georgia could use its billions in reserves to offset reductions in income tax revenue.
Tillery and several other Republican members of the committee are running against each other for state office.
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones will not be campaigning for re-election next year. Instead, the Republican from Jackson is running for governor, opening an intraparty contest to succeed him.
Sen. John F. Kennedy, R-Macon, wants to be the next lieutenant governor and stepped aside as president pro tempore of the Senate — the highest office in that chamber below lieutenant governor — to run for Jones’ job. And Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, stepped down as majority leader — the next highest office — to run for the same job.
Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, who is vice chair of Tillery’s Appropriations Committee and chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, is running for the office too.
All of them but Kennedy attended Tuesday’s hearing. Dolezal and Gooch took the opportunity to blame inflation on income taxes.
Jones attended briefly, opening the hearing with a pledge to work “methodically” and “responsibly” to abolish the state income tax, currently 5.19%.
“We’re serious about wanting to eliminate the state income tax. We’ve done a good job in lowering it the last three years,” he said. “Our plan is to eliminate it completely.”
