Georgia Tax Revenue Rises on Restarted Motor Fuel Taxes

Georgia motor fuel tax collections in July reached $179.5 million, making up 62% of total taxes collected that month. (Willard/Getty Images)

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Georgia’s reinstatement this year of motor fuel taxes helped the state collect 13.1% more revenue to reach nearly $2.5 billion in July compared with the previous year.

Gov. Brian Kemp’s office announced Aug. 10 that the double-digit increase for that month (the first of the fiscal year 2024) was mainly due to reinstating the state’s motor fuel excise tax. Kemp’s announcement noted the state had suspended fuel tax collection from March 18, 2022, through Jan. 11, 2023 “to help hardworking Georgians fight through 40-year-high inflation.”

The latest taxation figures show motor fuel tax collections in July reached $179.5 million, making up 62% of total taxes collected that month.

According to the Georgia Department of Revenue, the enactment in 2022 of House Bill 304 that stopped the collection of motor fuel excise taxes from March 18 to May 31, 2022, and subsequent executive orders last year by Kemp (including the last suspension from Dec. 8, 2022, to Jan. 10, 2023) saved Georgia drivers $1 billion at the gas pump. The tax relief was applied to eligible motor fuels such as clear diesel, gasoline, aviation gasoline, liquid propane gas, gasohol, ethanol, liquefied natural gas and compressed natural gas.

State lawmakers and the governor took the motor fuel tax suspension measures in reaction to the war in the Ukraine and rising inflation. For example, the average price of a gallon of gas in Georgia rose from $2.59 to $4.06 between March 2021 and March 2022.

“This 56% increase adversely impacted Georgia taxpayers. Under the leadership of Governor Kemp and the General Assembly, the state of Georgia proactively worked to ease the burden Georgia taxpayers were feeling at the pump,” the state revenue office noted.

Also rising this July were individual income tax collections that totaled $1.26 billion, up 7.8% compared to the same month last year.