McGinty: Tax collection makes for some odd politics

Recently, a lot of media attention was given to a rather odd exchange between Roy Barnes and David Poythress, two Democratic candidates for governor, which involved the Whig Party, name-calling and a shout-out to Telfair County.

Lost amid this chatter was an actual, legitimate policy disagreement between Rep. DuBose Porter and Georgia Revenue Commissioner Bart Graham.

Porter, who also is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, wants to give local governments the ability to collect sales tax revenue at the point of purchase and, if necessary, to contract with private firms to execute those duties. Porter has cited the success of Alabama, which moved to that process recently and uncovered $1 billion in lost sales tax revenue. Five other states have similar collection systems, in which local governments collect, or have collected for them, the sales tax revenue generated in their jurisdictions.

Graham's counterargument is that there isn't $1 billion in uncollected sales tax in Georgia, and moving to point-of-sale collection would result in increased paperwork and hardships for various businesses. He has said there is a total of $1.6 billion in total delinquent accounts in Georgia - covering all taxes, including sales taxes. This, though, fails to address exactly how much of that total is uncollected sales tax revenue.

While estimates vary on how great an effect point-of-sale collection would have on Georgia's tax revenues, it's clear it would make a difference for local governments forced to pinch pennies during tough times.

The state of Georgia employs a completely backward way of collecting and then redistributing sales tax revenue. Local businesses send their filings to the state government, which sifts through all of the receipts from Georgia's 159 counties and then sends the money back to those local communities.

Obviously, this system has various inefficiencies. Primarily, there's the nonsensical transfer of local funding to a centraliz

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