ATLANTA — The new year means new laws for the state of Georgia. Some of them include tax incentives, sexual assault training for medical providers, and allowing juvenile court judges to hear more evidence.
“It is not uncommon for physicians to be to be charged with sexual assault," said Tom Church, an Atlanta trial lawyer.
House Bill 458 will require doctors, the state medical board, and medical students to learn more about boundaries and sexual assault.
“Different kinds of medical providers are going to have different kinds of training, but it's going to focus on sexual misconduct and professionalism," Church said. "The laws also provide a new mechanism for suspending physicians' licenses.”
Another law will allow juvenile courts to consider more evidence, including hearsay witnesses, to determine the best interest of a child.
“It really opens the door to a lot more information that the judge can consider, which in many cases can be a good thing," Church explained.
Another law may put more money in your wallet by increasing the minimum income required before you start paying state income taxes.
The standard deduction for individuals will rise from $4,600 to $5,400 a year, and for married couples filing jointly, it increases from $6,000 to $7,100 a year.
“That's actually a boom for low-income Georgians, so if your income falls below a certain threshold, now you may not have any state tax liability," said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist with Emory University.
House Bill 32 creates incentives for teachers to work in underperforming and rural schools.
“What it does is it gives them a tax incentive of $3,000 that can be carried forward into future years if their state income tax liability is less than $3,000," Gillespie said.
She added she expects more state tax changes in 2022.
“I think as a political scientist, the thing that I'm going to be looking ahead to is whether or not there's going to be a discussion about further tax cuts that would benefit an even wider array of Georgians across the income spectrum," Gillespie said.