[SEDXC] About the Automobile License Tags ...

[Weymouth Walker]

THIS MAIL WAS FORWARDED TO ME ... I HAVE
NOT ATTEMPTED TO VET THE MESSAGE ...

Wey / K8EAB ...
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ARRL Members Only Web site
> [mailto:memberlist at www.arrl.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2010 5:11 PM
> To: ------ 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 from $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 repealed along with many others and replaced by the 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
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> ARRL Georgia Section
> Section Manager: Eugene C Clark, W4AYK
> w4ayk at arrl.org
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