ATLANTA — Georgia tax filers may have already received some extra cash.
The Georgia Department of Revenue and the governor's office announced Monday that the first round of surplus tax refund checks have been issued. The extra money is an additional refund of income taxes from 2021 stemming from the state's revenue surplus.
To receive the funds, filers must have paid and filed taxes for the past two tax years.
Below is the structure of the payments:
- $500 for married couples filing jointly
- $375 for single filers with dependents
- $250 for single filers
According to a spokesperson for the agency, Georgia's DOR has already processed over 1.1 million refunds totaling $257 million.
If you haven't received your money yet, don't worry. The DOR said the refunds will go out over the next eight weeks for those who filed by April 18. Those who filed after the tax deadline will of course wait a little longer as refunds will not be issued until one's 2022 tax returns have been processed, according to state officials.
"Filing early does not impact when a taxpayer receives their surplus refund. Filing an extension will delay your refund. Additionally, individuals without a tax liability will not receive a tax refund," a DOR spokesperson clarified.
There are very specific circumstances that could impact one's refund. The DOR has outlined issues that could reduce one's reimbursement here.
Why are we getting the payments?
Georgia has a very large budget surplus - at the latest report last year, it was more than $6 billion - of which $1 billion the governor and legislature have decided to return to taxpayers in the form of these payments.
Critics of the payment policy said the surplus has been created because the state estimates its revenue conservatively. They also said it was created because the state government cut funding for many state agencies when COVID hit, anticipating a drastic fall in revenue - which wound up not really materializing. Only, they left the lower funding levels in place.
The Georgia Budget & Policy Institute estimates the state is spending $121 less per resident for this fiscal year than it did 15 years ago - about $1.3 billion total.
The state's Republican leadership has countered that conservative fiscal management has left the state better off financially than many other states and that the payments are the best use of the surplus money.