The Georgia Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday unanimously backed a $1 billion income tax rebate, similar to the one the state sent out last year.
The vote came two days after the House and Senate backed a midyear state budget that includes a separate $1 billion property tax rebate.
The House has already passed the income tax rebate legislation — House Bill 162 — and the full Senate is expected to give it final approval in the coming days.
Both rebates were proposed by Gov. Brian Kemp last year when he was running for reelection. He announced his plan once it was clear the state was running a massive surplus in tax collections.
After all the bills were paid and agencies returned leftover funds, the state’s surplus for fiscal 2022, which ended June 30, was a record $6.6 billion.
Under the income tax rebate legislation, single-filing Georgians would receive $250 rebates and couples filing jointly $500.
“It’s $1 billion that will be going back to the citizens of Georgia,” Rep. Lauren McDonald, R-Cumming, one of Kemp’s House floor leaders, told the Senate panel. “It’s their money.”
People who didn’t owe state income taxes — such as seniors living on pensions and/or Social Security — won’t’ receive the rebates.
Under the midyear budget, homeowners would receive an extra one-time exemption on the value of their homes at tax time, a move that Kemp said in January would save those Georgians, on average, about $500.
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