HR1504 is a Georgia House resolution proposing a constitutional amendment that would require the General Assembly to "provide by general law for an income tax system" and to include a progressive individual income tax. The amendment replaces language that limited increases in the state income tax rate with a positive duty on lawmakers to establish an income tax scheme and adds a requirement that all categories of individual income be taxed substantially equally.
The resolution does not set rates, brackets, credits, or enforcement mechanisms; it prescribes a constitutional standard (progressivity and substantially equal treatment of income types) and sends that standard to voters under the ballot title "Tax the Rich Act." If ratified, the change constrains future legislatures and invites judicial review over whether enacted tax statutes satisfy the constitutional commands.
At a Glance
What It Does
The resolution replaces a provision that prohibited raising the maximum marginal state income tax rate with a new constitutional requirement: the General Assembly must enact, by general law, an income tax system that includes a progressive individual income tax and treats all categories of individual income substantially equally. It does not itself set rates, brackets, or exemptions.
Who It Affects
The amendment would bind the Georgia General Assembly, the Department of Revenue (or successor tax agency), taxpayers whose liability depends on how the legislature defines progressivity and income categories, and courts that may be asked to interpret the new constitutional language. Tax advisors, accountants, and businesses organized as pass-through entities would see indirect effects from any implementing legislation.
Why It Matters
Placing progressivity and parity among income categories in the state constitution shifts policymaking from ordinary statute to a higher legal plane, narrowing legislative discretion and increasing the likelihood of litigation over tax design. The amendment changes the baseline for future tax policy debates in Georgia without specifying technical details, so its practical impact will depend entirely on how the legislature implements the mandate.
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What This Bill Actually Does
HR1504 rewrites a clause of Georgia’s constitution to convert a restriction on raising a maximum marginal income tax rate into an affirmative constitutional duty for the legislature. Instead of a constitutional bar, the state would have a constitutional command: the General Assembly must provide by general law an income tax system that includes a progressive individual income tax.
The measure also adds a principle that the income tax system must ‘‘provide for substantially equal taxation of all categories of individual income.’’
The resolution itself does not create tax rates, brackets, credits, thresholds, or enforcement procedures. It is a constitutional framework: voters would approve the rule that the legislature must follow when it writes the tax code.
That means the practical content of the amendment will be supplied later—by statute and, potentially, by judicial interpretation when disputes arise over what ‘‘progressive’’ and ‘‘substantially equal’’ mean in practice.The ballot language supplied in the resolution calls the proposal the "Tax the Rich Act," which is the name voters would see. The resolution follows the constitutional process for submitting amendments to voters and thus functions as a policy direction packaged for a referendum rather than immediate statutory change.
Implementation costs, administrative adjustments, and compliance burdens will flow from subsequent legislation that translates the constitutional command into a workable tax system.Because the amendment changes the constitutional baseline, it also changes the legal tests courts will apply to future tax laws. Challenges are likely to claim that particular rate schedules, preferential treatments, or exclusions violate the new ‘‘substantially equal’’ requirement or fail to be meaningfully progressive.
Conversely, the legislature retains latitude over technical design unless and until courts define those constitutional terms.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The amendment replaces the sentence that barred increasing the maximum marginal state income tax rate with a constitutional duty requiring the General Assembly to provide by general law an income tax system.
It mandates that the state income tax include a ‘‘progressive individual income tax’’ but does not specify rate levels, brackets, or thresholds.
It requires that the income tax system "provide for substantially equal taxation of all categories of individual income," introducing a constitutional constraint on differential treatment (for example, wages vs. capital gains) without detailing how equality is measured.
The resolution itself is a proposed constitutional amendment sent to voters; it does not change tax law immediately—the legislature must enact implementing statutes if the amendment is ratified.
The ballot title printed for voters will call the proposal the "Tax the Rich Act," making the referendum’s public label part of the campaign environment.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Amend Article VII, Section III, Paragraph IV
This is the operative text change: it removes the existing constitutional language that limits the maximum marginal rate and substitutes a mandate that the General Assembly enact, by general law, an income tax system including a progressive individual income tax and substantially equal treatment of income categories. Practically, this converts a passive constitutional ceiling into an affirmative constitutional floor and principle, which will guide and constrain future statutory design.
Constitutional requirement of a progressive individual income tax
By requiring progressivity at the constitutional level, the amendment ensures that any implementing statute must include graduated tax rates or an equivalent mechanism producing higher effective rates on higher incomes. The provision stops short of prescribing how steeply rates must rise or whether progressivity will be measured by marginal rates, effective rates, or another metric—leaving those technical choices to the legislature and, if contested, to the judiciary to interpret.
'Substantially equal' taxation across income categories
The new clause obligates the legislature to avoid categorical tax preferences that result in meaningful disparities across types of individual income (for example, wage income versus capital gains). The phrase "substantially equal" is deliberately imprecise; its practical effect will hinge on statutory definitions and judicial standards for what counts as a permissible differential versus an unconstitutional preference.
Ballot submission and ballot title
This section directs the Secretary of State and election officials to place the amendment before voters under Article X, Section I, Paragraph II of the Georgia Constitution and prescribes the exact ballot wording, including the public-facing name "Tax the Rich Act." That name is part of the public record and likely to shape voter perception, though it does not alter the legal text of the amendment.
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Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Low- and middle-income Georgia taxpayers — If the legislature responds to the constitutional command by increasing progressivity, lower-income taxpayers may face lower effective rates or receive targeted relief funded by higher rates on top earners.
- Public programs funded by state revenue — A legislature that implements steeper progressivity could raise additional revenue to finance education, health, and social services, benefiting recipients of those programs.
- Tax equity and advocacy organizations — Groups focused on progressive taxation will gain a constitutional tool to push for redistributive tax legislation and to challenge preferential tax treatments in court.
Who Bears the Cost
- High-income individuals and households — The amendment clears the path for future statutes that could raise marginal or effective rates on top earners; those taxpayers would bear the direct tax burden if the legislature exercises the new authority.
- Owners of income that currently receives preferential treatment (e.g., capital gains) and pass-through business owners — Implementing ‘‘substantially equal’’ treatment could reduce or eliminate tax advantages tied to particular income forms, increasing tax liabilities for these groups.
- Georgia General Assembly and tax administration — The legislature must draft a comprehensive implementing code consistent with constitutional prescriptions, and the Department of Revenue will incur rulemaking, IT, and enforcement costs to administer any new progressive scheme.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The amendment pits the goal of constitutional tax fairness—mandating progressivity and parity across income categories—against the need for legislative flexibility and administrable clarity; writing broad principles into the constitution preserves a policy objective but also hands difficult, technical trade-offs to future lawmakers and courts, risking litigation and implementation complexity when what is intended as a rule becomes a contested standard.
The amendment sets constitutional goals but leaves crucial technical decisions to the legislature and the courts. ‘‘Progressive’’ lacks a statutory definition in the text, and ‘‘substantially equal taxation of all categories of individual income’’ is vague; both invite litigation over measurement standards (marginal vs. effective rates), acceptable distinctions (policy-based carve-outs), and permissible transition rules. Courts will likely be asked to define whether a tax structure is ‘‘progressive enough’’ or whether a categorical preference violates the parity command.
Because the resolution does not prescribe revenue targets, distributional thresholds, or phase-in mechanics, its immediate effect depends entirely on subsequent statutes. That creates two simultaneous dynamics: advocates can press for ambitious rate schedules under a constitutional banner, while opponents can claim the amendment is merely aspirational until the legislature acts.
Administrative capacity and fiscal modeling will become critical: translating a constitutional principle into administrable law involves design choices that carry economic and compliance trade-offs, such as bracket structure, treatment of deductions and credits, and anti-avoidance rules. Finally, naming the ballot measure the "Tax the Rich Act" introduces political framing that could affect voter expectations and judicial reception, though it has no bearing on the amendment’s operative text.
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