State Ends Fiscal Year with Revenue Uptick After Months-Long Slide

Georgia tax collections rose last month compared to June of last year, but the state ended fiscal 2024 with lower tax revenues than the previous year.

The state brought in $3.03 billion in June, up 6.5% compared to the previous June, the Georgia Department of Revenue reported Friday.

But the total tax take for the fiscal year that ended June 30 of about $32.95 billion was down 0.5% compared to fiscal 2023.

However, that doesn’t account for the state not collecting sales taxes on gasoline and other motor fuels for more than half of the last fiscal year. When that is taken into account, net revenues for fiscal 2023 were down 3.4%.

In June, individual income tax receipts rose by 2.8% over the previous June, largely the result of a 39.6% decrease in refunds issued by the state Department of Revenue.

Net sales taxes were up slightly by 0.7% last month. Corporate income tax collections in June rose by 31.4% compared to the same month a year ago, also driven by a significant decrease in refunds, in this case 91.5%.

The decline in tax collections for the last fiscal year came as no surprise to Gov. Brian Kemp and leaders in the General Assembly, who had witnessed a steady slide in state tax revenues for months prior to the uptick in June.

However, the state has plenty of cushion to weather that downturn in tax receipts in the form of a $16 billion budget surplus built up during the last several years.