When a government does something, it must act in the proper legal way. When it doesn’t, the people have a right to call it to task and compel change. In a nutshell, that is why the Georgia Motor Trucking Association (GMTA) GMTA and others are suing the state of Georgia over how it distributes (and/or allows use of) taxes on motor fuels.
The state constitution provides with laser-like specificity how motor fuel taxes may be used in Georgia: “An amount equal to all money derived from motor fuel taxes received by the state…is hereby appropriated for the fiscal year beginning July 1, of each year following, for all activities incident to providing and maintaining an adequate system of public roads and bridges in this state, as authorized by laws enacted by the General Assembly of Georgia, and for grants to counties by law authorizing road construction and maintenance….”
It goes on to say the state can spend more on roads and bridges if it wants, but not less than what is received, and that the money is to be used for roads and bridges even if the legislature doesn’t account for it in the state budget. That’s an amazingly specific and strong statement of intent.
The reality of the constitutional requirement was openly discussed in the forming of HB 170, the Transportation Funding Act of 2015.” In fact, early drafts required all money to be spent on roads and bridges. Legislators recognized the constitutional requirement, but crafting major legislation is full of horse-trading and compromise, and that occurred with HB 170.
Local governments regularly use tax money to lobby for more tax money. In this case, they worked extremely hard and the strong political push back by local government leaders and their lobbyists, who want the freedom to spend taxes from motor fuels on anything they desire, led the legislature to remove that language from the bill that passed. That is part of the process.
HB 170 is now the law, but it does not supersede the state constitution. When a law is wrong and creating harm, going to court is a proper way to address the situation. HB 170 simply “ran off the road” by authorizing the county and city governments to tax fuel (through various and multiple local option taxes) without restricting in any way that such taxes must be used on roads and bridges. Every day it remains in effect in its current form, millions of dollars are collected and open for misuse.
The Georgia Supreme Court addressed a remarkably similar question in 1979 in “City Council of Augusta v. Mangelly.” In that suit, the Georgia Supreme Court agreed with the taxpayers that the Georgia legislature could not authorize the counties to distribute county taxes to municipalities because such action violated the Georgia constitution. The Court said if the “state” is without authority to impose a tax, it could not authorize a county or municipality to impose that tax. This makes sense because the state may not do indirectly that which it cannot lawfully do directly. The General Assembly must have express constitutional authorization for its act in allowing a county to impose a tax for a particular purpose. For what purposes may the state authorize a county to tax? The answer must be found in the constitutional list of purposes for which the state itself may tax. And few things in the list are as clear as what the constitution says about taxes on motor fuels.
If the state cannot tax motor fuels for purposes other than providing and maintaining public roads and bridges, then the state cannot give its political subdivisions, a county or city government, that power.
Let me be clear that we are not opposing the collection of fuel taxes, or the tax rate, in HB 170. GMTA’s members and the trucking industry are fully supportive of paying enough taxes to ensure quality roads and the free flow of people and freight. That’s what motor fuel taxes are for. Our complaint and our suit is only about ensuring that the money we pay – the money all motorists pay – is spent the way the state Constitution requires — on roads and bridges.
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