DALTON, Ga. — Proponents of a proposed Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) for Whitfield County have claimed that up to 30 percent of the SPLOST collections would come from people from outside Whitfield County.

The proponents have made that claim in public forums. A website for Citizens for SPLOST, a group formed by the Greater Dalton Chamber of Commerce to promote the SPLOST, repeats that claim. The chamber’s board voted earlier this year to back the six-year, $100 million SPLOST that will be voted on on March 19. There is currently a four-year SPLOST that expires on June 30 that was projected to collect $64 million. The new SPLOST, if approved, would start on July 1. The 1 percent sales tax is applied to most goods bought in the county.

Greater Dalton Chamber of Commerce President Rob Bradham said Monday afternoon that after talking to an expert with the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government that the chamber “will probably be adjusting our presentation” to say that a portion of the tax collections will come from those from outside the county but not refer to 30 percent.

“We know that every day 30,000 people drive to Whitfield County to work from somewhere else,” Bradham said. “Is it reasonable to assume they buy nothing? We know that tens of thousands of cars drive up and down I-75 every day. Is it reasonable to assume that none of those people ever stop in Whitfield County and buy anything?”

But Bradham said Wes Clarke, a senior public service associate at the Carl Vinson Institute, told him no one tracks how much sales tax is paid by those who live inside the county and how much by those who live outside the county.

So where did the 30 percent number come from?

“Before the 2000 SPLOST, the University of Georgia Small Business Development Center conducted a study of Georgia counties based on the pull factor,” said former Whitfield County Board of Commissioners chairman Mike Babb, one of the point men in the chamber’s efforts to promote the SPLOST, in a recent interview. “A pull factor of 1 means a county’s retail sales equals what is expected. Based on 1998 sales data, Whitfield County’s pull factor is 1.29, suggesting 29 percent of sales tax is generated by highway traffic. Of course that was 20 years ago, so I don’t know if that number is high. But what they say is up to 30 percent now, so if it’s less we still aren’t lying.”

In fact, the pull factor is updated annually. The latest number, based on 2016 data, shows Whitfield County with a pull factor of .89.

Clarke said the pull factor is based on per capita sales tax collection. The per capita number for the state is set at 1, so the pull factor is based on how much a county’s per capita sales tax collections compare to the state.

Clarke said Whitfield County’s pull factor indicates that residents are spending a large share of their money outside the county, likely in Chattanooga or Atlanta.

“Only about seven (of Georgia’s 159) counties have a pull factor of significantly above 1,” Clarke said.

Clarke said those counties tend to be around large metro areas (Fulton County has a pull factor of 1.57) or tourist destinations (Glynn County, home to Jekyll Island, has a pull factor of 1.46).

Clarke said a county with a pull factor greater than 1 is likely drawing in outside shoppers but it’s impossible to say exactly how much of any county’s sales tax comes from people outside the county.

Whitfield County’s pull factor is largely in line with its neighbors off I-75. Catoosa County has a pull factor of .9, and Gordon County has a pull factor of .85.

Clarke said that since it is off the interstate, Whitfield County is likely getting some sales tax paid by people outside the county and that is offsetting to some degree the loss of sales tax revenue from county residents shopping elsewhere.

“But without doing an extensive survey, you really can’t say exactly what share of (Whitfield County’s) sales tax is being paid by outsiders,” Clarke said.

But Clarke pointed to one telling number.

The institute also calculates the pull factor for accommodations. That’s the sales tax paid on hotel and motel rooms.

Whitfield County’s accommodations pull factor is .56, meaning it is generating less sales tax per capita from lodging than the state as a whole.

“You are getting some people traveling on I-75 to stop and stay, but you are between Chattanooga and Atlanta, so a lot of people traveling on I-75 are probably just going to keep going to one of those cities to stay the night rather than stop in Dalton,” Clarke said.

Jevin Jensen, a member of an informal group of citizens opposed to the SPLOST, said the numbers show that Whitfield County residents will bear the burden of any tax.

“The fact is that nearly all of the $100 million SPLOST will be paid by residents of Whitfield County, and our pull factor of less than 1 confirms this,” he said.