Georgia veterinary services tax proposal dropped

Atlanta, Ga.

-- Georgia legislators have pulled veterinary services from a list of new items to tax to boost state revenues.

House Bills 385, 386, 387 and 388 all contained some part of a proposal to add a 4 percent state tax to a number of new items—veterinary services being the only healthcare service on the list.

Legislators announced that veterinary services would no longer be within the bill’s reach at a committee meeting in late March.

The Georgia Veterinary Medical Association had urged veterinarians and voters to contact legislators in protest of the proposed new veterinary service tax, saying veterinarians should be given the same consideration of other healthcare professionals and be excluded from service taxes.

Only three states have ever taxed veterinary services, and four others that recently considered veterinary service taxes—California, Maine, Michigan and Pennsylvania—exempted veterinarians in final proposals.

Read the full story in the May issue of

DVM Newsmagazine

.