This week, the Senate Special Tax Exemption Study Committee held its first meeting. This group of lawmakers is beginning a comprehensive review of Georgia’s tax exemptions, which hasn’t been done in more than 10 years, the AP reported. The committee is expected to work with state agencies, including the Georgia Department of Revenue, to review the cost and benefit of all tax exemptions and recommend whether they should be eliminated or expanded, or whether new ones should be added to state law.
The report isn’t expected to be completed until Dec. 1, but in the meantime, Georgia’s tax environment is doing something right: According to WalletHub, the Peach State is one of the top 10 best to start a business.
To create the report, WalletHub analysts compared all 50 states using an evaluation of 20 metrics that fell under three key categories: business environment, access to resources, and business costs. These included factors like average growth in number of small businesses, average growth of business revenues, five-year business survival rate, taxes, labor costs, availability of human capital, and financing accessibility.
Georgia scored 52.32 on the 100-point scale, earning a rank of 8th overall. For business environment, the state ranked 13th, 14th for access to resources, and 10th for business costs. Its best ranking factor was availability of human capital (fifth). Compared with neighboring states, Georgia fared better than all but Florida, which ranked sixth. Alabama ranked 42nd, North Carolina ranked 12th, South Carolina ranked 38th, and Tennessee ranked 27th.
