Georgia Dept. of Revenue Annual Report: $33.1 Billion in Tax Dollars Collected • The Georgia Virtue

State Revenue Commissioner Frank O’Connell announced this week that the agency had released the 2023 Calendar Year and Fiscal Year report of the Georgia Department of Revenue.

During 2023, the Department of Revenue collected $33.1 billion in tax revenue, issued almost $2.9 billion in individual income tax refunds, maintained the registration records of 10.6 million motor vehicles, and conducted 12,621 alcohol and tobacco investigations.

Other highlights include:

Operations

5.3 million individual income tax returns were prepared with 3.7 million refunds issued
1,574 Open Records Requests made
Administrative Hearing Office issued Executive Orders in 1,013 hearing cases
Audit Team’s Excise Tax Collections amounted to $19,737,237.61
- In the first nine months of 2023, 21,604 alcohol licenses out of 25,049 were renewed and 3,622 new licenses were issued
- The division conducted underage tobacco purchase checks with 161 underage purchases out of the 1,595 investigations completed (10.09%)
$784 million-to-date distributed to local governments for homestead relief
SCHOOL ZONE CAMERAS/SCHOOL BUS CAMERA VIOLATIONS: Motor vehicle liens placed on Georgia registrations increased from 1,100 in FY 2019 when the law only allowed liens for passing school buses to more than 50,000 in FY 2023 when accounting for the proliferation of school zone cameras across the state.
- That’s a 4,900% increase
CUSTOMER SERVICE: A reduced average speed to answer from 25 minutes to 3.5 minutes.
- 84% of the calls answered were in 6 minutes compared to 27% in the prior year
74,840 tax compliance audits were conducted
- 67% were found out of compliance

Collections

Leading all categories in the itemization of net tax collections was Individual Income Tax with a total
of $16,970,544,018, which accounted for over 51% of net revenue collections
Corporate Tax saw the highest Year-Over-Year (YoY) increase at 51.7% compared to FY2022
$17.8 billion in sales and use tax payments were received by DOR
- $8.8 billion distributed to all local governments
Over $69.3 million in registration fees were collected from Georgia and 58 other jurisdictions
$538,000 in penalties collected related to alcohol and tobacco

Other interesting facts from the report:

Georgia’s current corporate income tax rate of 5.75% first became effective in 2019 for
taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2019. The tax was initiated in Georgia in 1929 with a
rate of assessment equal to 1/3 of the federal rate. In 1931, the rate was changed to 4%
MOTOR FUEL TAXES: For calendar year 2023, the state excise tax rate is 0.312¢ per gallon for all fuel types (e.g., gasoline, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), and special fuels including Compressed Natural Gas (CNG)) except for diesel fuel, which is taxed at a rate of
0.350¢ per gallon.
- Aviation gasoline is subject to a 1¢ per gallon excise tax so long as the fuel is sold to a
  licensed aviation distributor
Georgia law first required motor vehicle registrations beginning in 1910. Motor vehicles are subject to annual registration fees ranging from $12 to $750 depending on the weight of the vehicle
State taxation of cigars and cigarettes began in 1923. The rate on cigarettes increased gradually to
12 cents per pack in 1971. Effective July 1, 2003, the excise tax on a pack of 20 cigarettes increased
to the present rate of 37 cents.

The Department submitted the report to the Governor and the General Assembly for consideration and decision making for Georgia taxpayers.

“In 2023, revenue collections remained steady year-over-year compared to 2022. Due to the resilience of Georgia’s economy and the fiscally responsible decisions of policymakers, tax collections remained at an all-time high even as tax cuts and refunds were delivered for hardworking Georgians,” said State Revenue Commissioner Frank O’Connell. “I am proud of the work put in by our team implementing the policies of Governor Kemp and the General Assembly, including over 2 billion dollars in income tax and property tax relief.”

Read the full report below.

FY 2023 Department of Revenue Report