Businesses owe the Georgia Department of Labor more than $100 million in back unemployment taxes and Georgia’s Labor Commissioner says he has a plan for how to recoup the money.
“I’m not asking for taxpayer money. I’m saying let me go find it,” Commissioner of Labor Bruce Thompson told Channel 2 consumer investigator Justin Gray.
Thompson said new legislation, Senate Bill 475, would change Georgia law to allow the DOL to go after those unpaid bills and refill the state’s dwindling underfunded unemployment trust fund.
“We have, we believe, $100 million that’s sitting on the sidelines that’s not been collected. We’ve identified it,” Thomson said.
Under current law, all the money DOL takes in goes to the state treasury. The proposed bill would allow DOL to keep 20% of the fines, penalties, and back payments it receives to fund its recovery work and help fund the unemployment trust fund.
Right now, the trust fund has $1.6 billion. That’s about half of what officials say it should be even in a strong economy with low unemployment.