With SPLOST now over, be sure to check your receipts to ensure you aren’t being overcharged

Published 1:00 am Monday, July 1, 2019

After four years, Whitfield County’s Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) came to an end at midnight Sunday. Starting at 12:01 a.m. today, the sales tax on many goods sold in the county falls from 7% to 6%. But some local officials say customers might want to make sure that’s what they are actually paying.

Business owners who collect sales tax should be well aware it has changed, Whitfield County Tax Commissioner Danny Sane said.

“The (Georgia Department of Revenue) sales tax division sends every business owner who collects the tax a notice to make sure they are reducing it to the proper amount,” he said. “They send that notice one month before prior to the change, and it is also on the form that they fill out to collect the tax and send it in.”

Still, Sane suggests that customers keep an eye on their receipts.

“The last time this happened (in 2010) there were a number of stores, particularly these little convenience stores, that kept collecting the tax,” he said. “I’m not saying that anyone means to do something wrong. But I am saying the public needs to be aware the tax is going down.”

Some Whitfield County residents said Friday they did not realize the SPLOST was ending on Sunday.

“I knew it was going to expire, but I wasn’t exactly sure when,” said Rocky Face resident Diana Sanz.

In March 2015, Whitfield County voters easily approved a new SPLOST by a 67.26% to 32.74% vote. In March of this year Whitfield County voters defeated a referendum that would have extended the SPLOST for six more years. That SPLOST, which was projected to raise $100 million, was rejected by a 57.94% to 42.06% vote.

The 1% sales tax approved in 2015 began July 1, 2015. As of Friday, it had collected, $63.2 million, slightly exceeding what it was projected to collect when it passed.

The top project the 2015 SPLOST funded was a new digital emergency communications system serving all county first responders as well as those in the four cities. The system cost about $12 million and replaced the county’s analog system, which had been used for more than 40 years.

The SPLOST also funded the Haig Mill Lake Park, which opened last year at a cost of $5 million, and a new walking track at Westside Park.

It also funded the $1.2 million Whitfield County Fire Station 11 in Cohutta, as well as six new fire trucks for the Whitfield County Fire Department and two new fire trucks and a mobile light and air vehicle for the Dalton Fire Department.

It also provided $25 million for culvert and bridge repair and road resurfacing across the county and the city of Dalton.

Cohutta received $485,000, Tunnel Hill $700,000 and Varnell $315,000 from the current SPLOST.

Cohutta used part of its money, along with a grant from the federal Appalachian Regional Commission to extend sewer to its downtown business area, a move officials believe will bring businesses back to downtown.

“We’ve already got two new businesses coming in, two restaurants,” said Cohutta Mayor Ron Shinnick. “In the past, we couldn’t get restaurants to come in because they needed sewer.”

The Whitfield County Board of Commissioners is looking at placing another SPLOST referendum on the May 2020 general primary ballot. They and the four city councils are forming a SPLOST 2020 advisory committee of citizens to review any proposed projects.

To be on the advisory committee, a person must be a Whitfield County resident and have voted in three of the last four elections wherever you are registered to vote. A person appointed by a city council must reside in that city. A person appointed by a commissioner must be a resident in that commissioner’s district. Elected officials and candidates for elected office may not be on the committee.

Applications for the advisory committee are available at the county website, www.whitfieldcountyga.com. Paper applications can be picked up at Administrative Building 1, 301 W. Crawford St., and returned there after being completed.

All applicants can go online or fill out an application and county officials will forward the application to officials in the cities. The deadline to apply is today, but commissioners are expected to extend the deadline at least one week.