SPLOST, It’s a Georgia Thing!
As taxpayers, it is important to know how we keep Georgia beautiful and operative. It is also important to know how your taxes are being spent and who gets to spend it. One of our most recent tax levies is called SPLOST.
To fund county projects to build parks, schools and roads, Georgia law makers created SPLOST aka “Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.” Basically each county’s commission, with the support of its city counsel, if any, can elect to add up to 2% additional tax to the existing Georgia sales tax (4%).
OCGA 48-8-115 and a provision in the Georgia Constitution provide parameters for qualifying a project. In general the projects must be:
- Major
- Permanent
- Long-lived in nature (as in land and structures.)
Explicitly included in the statutes as bona fide SPLOST projects are roads, streets, bridges, police cars, fire trucks, ambulances and garbage trucks. Generally funds are not supposed to be used for maintenance but there is an exception for road or bridge repair.
