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Georgia Republican House speaker proposes additional child income tax cut

Georgia House Republicans are proposing an additional tax cut for parents.

House Speaker Jon Burns on Wednesday said his GOP caucus will back a plan to raise the amount that parents can deduct per child from their yearly state income taxes to $4,000 from the current $3,000. With Georgia’s income tax rate currently at 5.49%, that works out to as much as $55 more per child, or about $150 million statewide.

“While rising child care costs are here with us every day, we’re hoping this extra $1,000 deduction per child will help alleviate some of those costs for the parents,” Burns, of Newington, told reporters at a news conference.

It’s unclear what the practical effect of putting all the surplus cash into the rainy day fund would be. Lawmakers can only spend up to the amount Kemp allows, whether from the rainy day fund, the unallocated surplus, or regular revenue.

However, it could reduce political pressure to spend the unallocated surplus, a move Kemp has mostly resisted before allocating $2 billion of it for spending in his current budget proposal. Democrats have attacked the surplus, saying the state is piling up cash while ignoring critical needs.

“We’re starting this year with a $16 billion surplus, $11 billion in unallocated funds,” Democratic Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes of Lawrenceville said at a news conference last week. “This isn’t Monopoly money. This is hard-earned tax dollars that should be reinvested in improving the life of every Georgian.”

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