A key Senate committee easily approved a tax break on Super Bowl tickets Wednesday along with another sales tax holiday this summer for back-to-school shoppers.
The Senate Economic Development and Tourism Committee sent House Bill 951 to the Senate floor for a vote during the final few weeks of the session. The measure passed the Georgia House last week.
The back-to-school sales tax holiday would be July 30-31. A similar tax break for energy-efficient products would be held Sept. 30-Oct.2.
The state has had similar tax holidays, off and on, for more than a decade.
"It's a good job creator and good for working families," said state Sen. Butch Miller, R-Gainesville, who added that the back-to-school sales tax holiday weekend is one of the busiest weekends of the year for retail sales.
Waiving the sales tax on tickets to the Super Bowl would cost the state and city of Atlanta $10 million in revenue. But Miller said hosting a Super Bowl would bring $400 million or more in economic benefits from spending by visitors on hotels, meals and other things. That, Miller said, would more than pay the state and city back for lost sales tax revenue on tickets.
For instance, he said, the state and city would get $30 million in sales tax revenue from $400 million or more in economic activity while giving up $10 million in sales taxes from the tickets.
"That sounds like it would be a good deal for Atlanta and the state of Georgia," said state Sen. Ben Watson, R-Savannah, a member of the committee.
Miller said other one-time sporting events, such as NCAA basketball’s Final Four, could also qualify for the break on tickets.
The Atlanta Sports Council — along with Gov. Nathan Deal and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed — is backing the ticket bill in hopes of persuading the National Football League to bring the Super Bowl to Atlanta to showcase the new Falcons stadium that’s rising next door to the Georgia Dome.
Such deals are typical of cities bidding on Super Bowls, officials said, but anything involving tax breaks that help big-money sporting events (and wealthy owners) is sure to spark debate. Particularly in Atlanta, where the city has put big money into the new Falcons stadium and the state has borrowed more than $40 million to build a parking deck for the facility.
Atlanta has already committed $200 million in bonds backed by hotel-motel taxes for construction of the nearly $1.5 billion stadium.
The NFL said in a statement earlier this year that it requires any city hosting the game to exempt sales taxes on tickets.
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