[Fourlanders] FW: About the Automobile License Tags

[Jim Worsham]

Below this is some info from the Georgia SM.  The following is a link for
the Gwinnett County Tax Commissioner:

http://gwinnetttaxcommissioner.manatron.com/Tabs/MotorVehicle.aspx

They both say the same thing, effective May 12th ham tags cost.  For those
of you who recently renewed ham tags and didn't get charged this new fee I
have no explanation.

73
Jim, W4KXY

It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart
you are.  If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.
Richard P. Feynman

-----Original Message-----
From: ARRL Members Only Web site [mailto:memberlist at www.arrl.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2010 5:11 PM
To: wa4kxy at bellsouth.net
Subject: About the Automobile License Tags

Many of you have asked me about this, and about what we can do.  In a
word, we have been quietly and secretly "had" by our state
legislators and governor, and at this point there is nothing we can do.
 This was done by the legislature quickly before any of the public could
know anything about it.  Remember this during the next elections.  The
word from our ASM for Legislative Affairs Jim Altman, W4UCK is as
follows:
"They attached user fees to everything in sight.  Anything that had a
fee attached, the fee was raised.  Anything 'fee-able' that didn't have
a fee, got one.  A different example: there was an act passed called
the "Judicial Operations Funding Act." It doubles all the filing fees
for civil cases, they increased the "copy cost" for records on appeal
to $10.00 per page (which can be hundreds, even thousands of pages).
NOT ONE DIME of any of these "user fees" goes to fund the operation
paying the fee, it ALL goes to the general fund. Annual corporate
registration fees went form $30.00 to $50.00. This was not, I REPEAT
NOT a tax increase.  See HB1055
 
Nothing has changed about the existence or ability to obtain our
plates.  
 
The code section providing for our plate 40-2-75 has been repealed
along with many others and replaced by the provisions of 40-2-86.1 
 
Our plates fall into a category of non-revenue sharing special plates. 
'Non-revenue sharing" means a plate that is not on behalf of some
organization that gets a cut of the proceeds of the sale of the plates.
 We will now pay $25.00 for the manufacture of the plate, a special
license plate fee (annual) of $35.00.  All the money raised goes to the
general fund.  So do the volunteer firefighters.  (HB 1055 section
1-77)
 
There is absolutely nothing the Governor or anyone else can do about
this now. The Governor can not "repeal" nor revise a single word of the
law.  The only thing that can be done is to elect a legislature that
will have the honesty and courage to call a tax increase what it is, a
tax increase, and to do so in a straight forward manner, like, raise
taxes, instead hiding behind this sort of stuff.  This was all done in
less than an hour on the 36th day of the session."
 
 
Jim Altman
jaltman at altlaw.com

So my recommendation is that Georgia hams vote with our feet:  Boycott
the Amateur Radio License tags until the fees are dropped.  That way
they don't get our money and perhaps they get our message.  And above
all, vote all of them out next election.
Eugene C. Clark, W4AYK, Section Manager, Georgia

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ARRL Georgia Section
Section Manager: Eugene C Clark, W4AYK
w4ayk at arrl.org
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