Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones attends the governor's press conference on tort reform at the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta, Thursday, January 30, 2025.
(Matthew Pearson/WABE)
This story was updated on Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025, at 12:35 p.m.
Ahead of the 2026 legislative session starting in January, Georgia state Republican lawmakers are planning to introduce a measure to eliminate the state’s personal income tax.
Georgia currently has a 5.19% flat individual income tax rate, and it is set to decrease by 0.10% every year until the rate is 4.99%.
Personal income taxes account for around $16 billion of the state’s revenue, or 47% of the state’s general fund revenue in FY 2025.
Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones appointed the members to the Senate Special Committee on Eliminating Georgia’s Income Tax in July for the purpose of researching and proposing a way for the state to lower its personal income tax.
The committee will have a final meeting to present recommendations before the start of the session, Jan. 12, 2026.
Jones said at the committee’s first meeting in August that this had been a long time coming.
“In my time in the state Senate, we’ve always talked about reducing the burden, the tax burden on our hardworking Georgians. We’ve also talked about reducing the state income tax. In a lot of cases, most of us or some of us in this room have run on eliminating the state income tax,” Jones said.
Jones, who is running for governor in 2026, has made cutting income taxes a key part of his campaign to keep pace with neighboring states, like Florida and Tennessee.
“If we want to continue to stay competitive here in the state of Georgia and it will continue to be the number one state to do business, we’ve got to be looking for ways to keep us competitive,” he said.
Blake Tillery, chair of the special committee, emphasized that the aim of the group’s work is nonnegotiable.
“While the mechanics are up for debate, I think it’s been very clear that the end goal is not,” he said in August.
Georgia Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, presents HB 67 to the Senate, detailing the Senate Appropriation Committee’s amendments to the budget bill on Wednesday, February 26, 2025. (Matthew Pearson/WABE)
Nevertheless, this proposal is not without its detractors and is expected to receive blowback should it be introduced in the Georgia General Assembly next year.
What legislation has already been enacted?
In 2022, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed HB 1437, which got rid of the state’s six income tax brackets and created a flat income tax rate, which applies to everyone regardless of income. Previously, single filers who earned less than $750 and joint filers who earned less than $1,000 paid a 1% individual income tax, while on the highest end, single filers earning more than $7,000 and joint filers earning more than $10,000 paid a 5.75% individual income tax.
HB 1437 set a flat individual income tax rate of 5.49% for 2024 and provided for the annual reduction of the rate to 4.99% eventually in 2029.
Two years later, Kemp signed into law HB 1015 to accelerate the rate cut in HB 1437 by reducing the rate in 2024 from 5.49% to 5.39%.
During the 2025 session, the bill received pushback from several Georgia Democratic lawmakers who argued that lowering the tax rate would primarily benefit the wealthy.
“This legislation will cost $748 million. Only 33% of it will go to 80% of Georgians; 67% of it will go to the top 20%,” said Democratic state Sen. Elena Parent in March. “It’s a tax cut for the rich. It delivers outsized benefits to Georgians already at the top of the income ladder who earn the highest incomes.”
How does Georgia’s personal income tax compare to other states?
Jones and lawmakers on the committee have indicated that they’re looking at other states that have already zeroed out or are in the process of eliminating their personal income taxes.
“Other states have gotten there, and they also provide us with a model for how to do so,” Tillery said in August. “We don’t have to reinvent the wheel.”
Eight states currently have no personal income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming. Washington only levies a capital gains income tax.
Nine states, including Georgia, are going to see individual income tax rates decrease in 2026.
Compared to other Southern states that still have personal income taxes, Georgia’s current income tax rate is on the higher end. Among states with a flat rate, Louisiana has a rate of 3%, North Carolina a rate of 4.25% that will drop to 3.99% starting next year, and Kentucky a rate of 4% that will drop to 3.5% in 2026.
Among those with graduated or progressive rates — which increases as a filer’s income increases — Alabama has a top rate of 5%, Arkansas has a top rate of 3%, Missouri has a top rate of 4.7% and South Carolina has a top rate of 6%.
Mississippi taxes income over $10,000 by 4.4%, and legislation is in place to reduce the rate to 3% by 2030, eventually zeroing out the rate if certain conditions are triggered. Kentucky is also on the path to eliminating its personal income tax under certain conditions.
Georgia HB 111, the state’s latest personal income tax law, also requires that revenue conditions be met in order to trigger an annual rate reduction.
Like Georgia, lawmakers in South Carolina and Missouri are expected to consider proposals to end personal income taxes.
What is the debate around eliminating the state personal income tax?
Though the committee is geared explicitly toward creating a proposal to eliminate the state personal income tax, not all committee members are supportive of this end.
Following the November meeting, two of the three Democrats on the committee, state Sens. Nan Orrock and Ed Harbison, issued a statement in opposition.
“Republicans want to jack up taxes on the middle class to give rich people a massive handout. This handout will make raising a family, buying a house or running a business more expensive. Almost every Georgian would see their tax bill increase by a month’s worth of groceries,” they wrote. “At the end of the day, they’re making the affordability crisis worse and saying they’re doing you a favor. Democrats on this committee are appalled by this wrongheaded, disastrous proposal.”
The Georgia Budget and Policy Institute released a report last month against eliminating personal income tax, arguing that any savings would go disproportionately to the state’s top earners.
“Looking at the effects of eliminating Georgia’s personal income tax alone, without considering the tax increases that would replace it, demonstrates that 45% of all savings ($7.6 billion annually) would go to those among the top 5% of earners, who make more than $332,000 per year,” the report said.
The report also claims that states with zero personal income taxes have relied on sales or excise taxes to make up the difference. It argues Georgia would have to impose a 12.02% general sales tax to make up for revenue gained from income taxes. This would triple the current sales tax rate. And since most Georgians effectively pay less than 3% in state income taxes when taking exemptions into account, the GBPI argues, higher sales taxes result in less take-home pay overall for lower and middle-income Georgians.
Arthur Laffer, an economist who served on former President Ronald Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board, appeared before the committee to urge lawmakers to pass a zero personal income tax law, and quickly.
“You can get rid of your income tax in one year if you fold your income tax into your sales tax and get rid of your sales tax expenditures,” Laffer said. “And that would incredibly jettison your economic growth.”
In other words, Laffer is proposing eliminating any sales tax exemptions or credits to make up for the revenue lost from getting rid of personal income taxes. Furthermore, he believes the money saved from tossing out exemptions would allow the state to lower the existing sales tax rate on top of ending personal income taxes.
“The people who would be upset by losing their sales tax exemptions are exactly those same people who would be most benefitted by getting rid of the income tax,” Laffer said.
Georgia Public Policy Foundation President and CEO Kyle Wingfield also told committee members that lowering tax rates is a stronger economic motivator than handing out rebates.
“When you lower the rate, and you do it on a permanent basis, you’re telling business owners, you’re telling entrepreneurs, you’re telling households, ‘Your money is going to go farther in the future than it used to.’ And that’s a powerful incentive for people to work more, to save more and to invest more,” he said. “And those three things are the lifeblood of our economy.”
What may Georgia lawmakers propose to lower the income tax?
Tillery has indicated that he wants to reduce existing sales and income tax credits and exemptions, which he says totals to around $30 billion, to accommodate the elimination of the personal income tax.
“Roughly $30 billion you will never see that you allocate as a legislator, simply never comes in,” he said. “For purposes of understanding how that relates to what we’re doing, remember, the personal income tax only brings in $16 billion.”
Not all exemptions may be impacted, though. At the end of November’s meeting, Senate Majority Leader Jason Anavitarte asked for a list of tax credits and exemptions related to maternity, children, public safety and the military. “I don’t think this committee is interested in doing anything that’s going to be negative towards children and moms and maternity and some of our public safety and military families across the state,” he said.
Currently, it’s unclear how quickly Georgia lawmakers may want to accelerate the personal income tax to zero. Given Georgia’s budget surplus, lawmakers have been eager to hurry along the state’s descent to a 4.99% rate in the past few years, but it’s possible they might want to follow in the steps of states like Missouri and Kentucky and implement a gradual approach.
