Change comes to Cobb: It’s ‘Adios’ to ‘business license’

By D.A. King, Marietta Daily Journal, July 23, 2008

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Summary:

The reader might be thinking right about here that we should not need another law to tell us not to encourage an illegal alien to open a business in our community, that we could just use common sense and not let that happen.

"Any individual, partnership, corporation or entity which engages in any activity with the object of gain, profit, benefit, or advantage in the unincorporated area of Cobb County is considered to be engaged in business and must obtain a Cobb County Business License or Business Registration Certificate for each location in Cobb County prior to engaging in these activities."

- Opening paragraph from information booklet distributed by Cobb County Government in the Cobb County Business License office.

Few of us have missed the vague message of "change" from Barack Obama's presidential campaign, but the most liberal Senator in the United States isn't the only political candidate for "change."

Cobb Commission Chairman Sam Olens - while not nearly as openly - is working very hard for change right here in Cobb County. Some of the changes he is making may not be easily seen unless you know where to look, but they are worthy of our interest and inspection.

For a shining example of Chairman Olens' recent changes, look no further than the official Cobb County Business License office Web site. For decades, obtaining a Cobb County Business License involved going to the Business License office, completing a business license application, paying the proper license fee and waiting a few days for your business license to arrive in the mail.

Ah, the good old days. There have been very recent changes to the old way of getting a business license from the Business License Department. First - and remember this one - for the most part, it is not a business license anymore. That has been changed. If you get it online, the "business license" application you file in the Cobb Business License office is now an "Occupation Tax Certificate" application. (The county has not had time to change the printed version yet - or the general information booklet quoted above.) To better accept the change, try to ignore the fact that there are business licenses - I mean "occupation tax certificates" - hanging in businesses all over Cobb that read "Regular License," like my own does.

Which brings up another change: Until July 16, the Business License Department Web site displayed a paragraph explaining that there are "31,000 Cobb Business Licenses." As part of Olens' change campaign, that paragraph disappeared last week. So did the term "business license" in more than 20 places on the county Web site.

Another change: Cobb spokesman Robert Quigley tells us that there are now only 1,098 Cobb Business Licenses.

Quite a change, eh?

By now, the reader may be asking "Why the changes" - and, "Did the Spanish language version of the Business License page change too?"

Here is why - and no, the Spanish version of the Cobb Business License page did not change. Because of a 2006 state law - the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act - local governments in Georgia are required to use a federal database called the SAVE program to verify the eligibility of any alien applicant who has signed a required affidavit saying he or she is living here lawfully and is eligible for what the feds and the state of Georgia call "public benefits."

Like adult education, housing assistance, homestead exemptions, small business loans and eighty other benefits, commercial licenses are "public benefits."

The term "business license" sounds far too much like it is a commercial license (because it is). And because Cobb is issuing business licenses - I mean occupation tax certificates - to nearly anyone who has the license fee (i.e. occupation tax), that in order to successfully avoid compliance with the law, the term "business license" had to go.

The reader might be thinking right about here that we should not need another law to tell us not to encourage an illegal alien to open a business in our community, that we could just use common sense and not let that happen.

Me too.

The law also requires local governments in Georgia to verify that newly hired employees are legal residents. How long before we see the word "employee" changed in Cobb to avoid compliance? Such as calling employees "reimbursed task assistants"?

I also find myself wondering how long it may be until it is either more profitable or politically expedient to redefine the downtown Marietta area. I can imagine the new signs now: "Welcome to Marietta Circle."

D.A. King is president of the Cobb-based Dustin Inman Society, which is opposed to illegal employment and illegal immigration.

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