The City of Atlanta has authority within the City Charter to collect fees and/or taxes. They're NOT identical. The City calls its solid waste fees a FEE.

Is the solid waste fee really a FEE or a TAX? Consider some facts. The solid waste “fee” is…

—Compulsory to 53,000 property owners who don’t have access to the City’s garbage collection.

—Unrelated to collecting the property owners’ garbage.

—Enforceable by a TAX lien, so the City could seize a property for nonpayment.

—Unauthorized to be a fee...because, instead, it is designed to be collected as part of property taxes. 

Thus, the solid waste fee can only be a TAX.

Because this TAX applies to only some of the properties in the City, it violates the City Charter, making it an illegal TAX.

At the most basic level, it’s WRONG for the City of Atlanta to charge 53,000 property owners for garbage collection when the City doesn’t collect their garbage. 

The City's "take" from this wordplay has crept up to approximately $84M so far! Don't go along with the wordplay!

Reminder: Please share and support. We need your neighbors to sign the petition!