The Roth IRA in Georgia

Georgia’s 2026 income-tax rate is 4.99%. Deductions can reduce the taxable amount. The retirement income exclusion is $35,000 per taxpayer at ages 62–64 and $65,000 at 65 or older; permanent total disability can also qualify a taxpayer before age 62. Taxable IRA distributions are within the exclusion base, but applying it to Roth conversion income is an interpretation that needs confirmation, as explained below.

This is the seventh state guide in this series, and Georgia is the first one where both your age and the calendar year change the answer. Every other state we have documented gives you a rate to look up. Georgia gives you a rate that is falling on a legislated schedule toward a 3.99% floor, an exclusion that switches on at 62 and grows at 65, a further increase already enacted for 2027, and a legislature that has formally studied abolishing the income tax altogether. Planning a conversion here means planning against a moving target.

It is also the state where the exclusion cuts against the Roth for the first time. In Pennsylvania the mechanics are neutral; in Illinois they tilt toward the traditional account at the contribution stage. In Georgia, a retiree inside the exclusion pays no state tax on a traditional withdrawal either — so within the cap the Roth's state-level advantage is zero, and it only switches back on above it.

Georgia Roth report card

The rate, and why it has a shelf life

Georgia was a graduated-bracket state with a 5.75% top rate until 2024. It has been flat ever since, and cut every year: 5.49% under the 2022 reform, accelerated to 5.39% for tax year 2024, then 5.19% for 2025, then 4.99% for 2026 — that last cut retroactive to January 1 and signed in May 2026. Withholding at the new rate was permitted from the day of signature.

Rate verified as of 2026-07-29

What comes next is a different kind of claim, and the distinction matters more than the numbers. From 2027 the rate is scheduled to fall a further 0.125 points a year until it reaches 3.99% — eight steps, so tax year 2034 at the earliest. But each step is subject to the statutory delay tests, with OPB determinations reported by December 1, and a single failure delays the schedule by a year. The scheduled 2027 reduction remains subject to those tests; the law requires OPB to report its determination by December 1, 2026.

Authority: O.C.G.A. §48-7-20(a.1)(1); HB 463 (2026) §§2-1, 5-1; DOR 2026 Employer's Withholding Tax Guide (rev. June 2026); O.C.G.A. 48-7-20(a.1) as amended by HB 463 (2026), Act signed 5/11/2026, Sections 2-1 and 5-1

One forward-looking change is not contingent, and it is easy to conflate with the rate. The increase in the 65-plus exclusion to $70,000 for tax year 2027 carries no trigger language at all. You can plan on the larger exclusion. You cannot plan on a lower rate.

A Georgia Senate committee studied income-tax elimination during 2025 and issued its final report in January 2026. It recommended a $50,000 single / $100,000 joint standard deduction from 2027, a 3.99% personal rate by 2029 and eventual repeal by 2032. Those larger deductions are not a separate zero-rate bracket, and the report does not establish their enactment. HB 463 instead enacted the current deductions and a conditional path to a 3.99% floor. Future tax proposals are not inputs for a current-law conversion estimate.

Authority: Georgia Senate Special Committee on the Elimination of Georgia's Income Tax, Final Report and Recommendations (January 2026), pp. 11, 15-21, especially Recommendations 1-2; HB 463 (2026), §§2-1 and 2-3

The exclusion, and whether it reaches a conversion

Georgia's retirement income exclusion is a subtraction from federal adjusted gross income available to anyone 62 or older, and to people under 62 who are permanently and totally disabled. For 2026 it is $35,000 per taxpayer at ages 62 to 64 and $65,000 at 65 or over, rising to $70,000 at 65-plus from 2027. Social Security is subtracted separately and in full, so it does not consume any of it.

Authority: O.C.G.A. §48-7-27(a)(5)(A)(xiii) and (a)(5)(D); DOR Form IT-511 (2025), Subtractions; Form 500 Schedule 1; O.C.G.A. §48-7-27(a)(5)(A)(xiii)-(xiv); HB 463 (2026) §2-3

The statute's list of what counts as retirement income is non-exhaustive and broad — pensions and annuities, interest, dividends, net rental income, capital gains, royalties, military retirement. Taxable IRA distributions are squarely in the base: Georgia's Form 500 Schedule 1 carries a dedicated line for them.

So does a conversion qualify? The chain is short and every link but the last is documented. A conversion is a taxable IRA distribution on the federal return. Georgia begins from federal adjusted gross income, so it arrives in the Georgia base automatically. The Department of Revenue states in its own instruction booklet that the provisions concerning taxability and conversion from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA are the same for Georgia as for the Internal Revenue Service. And the conversion lands on the exclusion worksheet's line for taxable IRA distributions.

What is missing is the last link. No Georgia authority expressly applies the exclusion to conversion income. We looked: the statute, the full text of the implementing regulation, three years of the instruction booklet, the Schedule 1 worksheet, the Department's retirement-income page, its retirees FAQ, and all seventeen of its published income-tax letter rulings. None of them addresses it either way. So the position here is that a conversion appears mechanically eligible, and that Georgia has addressed conversion taxability without addressing whether the exclusion reaches conversion income. That is a well-founded reading, not a settled rule, and anyone relying on it for a large conversion should get it confirmed in writing.

Authority: O.C.G.A. §48-7-27(a)(5)(A)(xiii) and (a)(5)(E)(i); DOR Form 500 Schedule 1 line 11; IRC §408A(d)(3) — no Georgia guidance addressing conversions; DOR Form 500 Schedule 1 (Rev. 07/09/25), Retirement Income Exclusion worksheet line 11; O.C.G.A. §48-7-27(a)(5)(E)(i)

If it does reach conversions, Georgia inverts the usual advice. The standard heuristic is to convert early, while rates are low and before required distributions start. Here the state-optimal window opens at 62 and widens at 65 — because available exclusions differ with age and disability status. Other deductions and retirement income also affect the amount taxed.

Why the exclusion cuts against the Roth

Every state guide in this series asks the same question at some point: how much is the Roth worth here, on top of what it is worth federally? In New York and California the answer is a lot, because those states tax a traditional withdrawal heavily. In Pennsylvania and Illinois the answer is that the state stays out of it either way. Georgia produces a third answer, and it is the uncomfortable one.

Georgia's exclusion applies to retirement income, not to Roth income specifically. A traditional IRA withdrawal is retirement income. So for a retiree whose withdrawals fit inside the cap, a traditional account is already free of Georgia tax — and the Roth's state-level advantage is not small, it is exactly nothing.

These examples assume a single filer, no other taxable income, no other use of the retirement exclusion, the $15,000 standard deduction, and no disability-based eligibility before age 62. The Roth's state-tax advantage is the tax on the traditional withdrawal after applicable deductions and exclusions, not 4.99% of every dollar withdrawn. Social Security is treated separately. Other income and filing circumstances change the result.

This is not an argument against Roth accounts. The federal case is untouched, and it usually dominates: tax-free growth, no lifetime required distributions, tax-free qualified Roth withdrawals for heirs, subject to inherited-account distribution rules, and no exposure to whatever federal rates do later. It is an argument against a specific piece of reasoning — "I live in a state with an income tax, so the Roth must be saving me state tax in retirement" — which in Georgia is often false for exactly the people most likely to believe it. Above the cap it becomes true again, and for a household with large balances and large withdrawals it can be worth a great deal.

There is one asymmetry that does favour the Roth, and it has nothing to do with rates. The exclusion is a finite annual allowance. Traditional withdrawals consume it; qualified Roth withdrawals do not, because they never enter federal adjusted gross income in the first place. A retiree with both account types can therefore spend the exclusion on the traditional withdrawals and take the rest from the Roth — using the allowance where it does work rather than wasting it. That is a sequencing advantage rather than a rate advantage, and it is the version of the Roth's Georgia case that actually survives scrutiny.

Authority: Computed from O.C.G.A. §48-7-20(a.1)(1) (4.99%), §48-7-27(a)(1)(B) (standard deduction), §48-7-27(a)(5)(A)(xiii) (exclusion); O.C.G.A. §48-7-27(a); DOR Form IT-511 (2025), Subtractions item 5; DOR Retirees FAQ

The question a falling rate creates

In most states the state cost of a conversion is a constant you look up. In Georgia it is a variable with a direction. That changes the shape of the decision, and not in the way people expect.

Assume a hypothetical $100,000 conversion is fully taxable after all deductions and exclusions — for example, a taxpayer under 62 without qualifying disability whose other income already uses the deductions. The rate-only comparison is: $4,990 at the 2026 rate, $4,865 at the next scheduled step, $3,990 at the statutory floor, and nothing at all if the tax were ever repealed. The spread between today's rate and the floor is $1,000 on that conversion — real money, but an order of magnitude smaller than the federal bill on the same transaction.

The temptation is to read that as "wait." Three things argue against treating it as a plan. First, the later rate steps are enacted but conditional; each is subject to the statutory delay tests, with OPB determinations reported by December 1, and one failure delays the whole schedule by a year, so the floor is eight steps and tax year 2034 away at the earliest. Second, the balance you are converting is presumably growing in the meantime, so a smaller rate applied to a larger number is not automatically cheaper. Third, and most importantly, the age gate moves in the opposite direction and it moves in bigger steps: turning 62, and then 65, changes the Georgia cost far more than a 0.125-point rate cut does.

Which is the honest summary: in Georgia the state-level variable worth planning around is your age, not the calendar. The rate is drifting down slowly and conditionally. Exclusion eligibility and usable amounts depend on age or qualifying disability, eligible income, spouse-by-spouse ownership and applicable proration. The enacted 2027 increase to $70,000 for eligible taxpayers 65 or older is separate from conditional rate cuts.

Authority: O.C.G.A. 48-7-20(a.1)(1) as amended by HB 463 (2026) (strike/insert text as printed in the enrolled act); arithmetic derived; Georgia Senate Special Committee on Eliminating Georgia's Income Tax, Final Report (2026), Final Recommendations

Three ways to get this wrong

In the Department's 2025 IT-511 example, the earned ratio $22,500/$68,300 rounds to 0.3294; multiplied by $5,000, it gives $1,647. The unearned ratio $225,150/$407,650 rounds to 0.5523; multiplied by the $60,000 remaining ceiling, it gives $33,138. The total allowed exclusion is $34,785. That is the Department's example, not a universal move-year result: $249.50 is not a universal arrival-year tax cost. The complete worksheet and return determine the tax change.

Each spouse's exclusion applies to that spouse's own eligible income. In a full-year 2026 joint-return example with both spouses 65 or older, no other income or use of the exclusion, confirmed conversion eligibility, a $30,000 standard deduction and no credits, converting $65,000 from each IRA produces $0 Georgia tax. Converting all $130,000 from one spouse's IRA produces $1,746.50. The other spouse may have other eligible income using their exclusion; converting from one IRA does not necessarily waste the other allowance.

Authority: Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 560-7-4-.02(2); 2025 IT-511 p.21; 2025 IT-511 Instructions Booklet, pp.21, 24 (Retirement Income Exclusion worksheet, Steps 1-2)

The county trap: same conversion, seven different answers

This is the part of Georgia's system that nobody writes about, and it can cost far more than the income tax does. Georgia counties offer generous age-based school-tax and homestead exemptions — some of them total exemptions worth thousands a year — and most of them are income tested. The tests are not standardised. Georgia counties use at least four different income definitions, and which one applies to you decides whether a Roth conversion is irrelevant or catastrophic.

The mechanism that makes this dangerous is a sequencing detail. The retirement income exclusion is a Georgia subtraction, applied after federal adjusted gross income is computed. So when a county's test is a federal measure, the exclusion cannot protect you — the test sees the entire conversion, including the part Georgia will subsequently exempt from income tax. A measure called Georgia Net Income may instead use a separate county worksheet. Do not assume the income-tax retirement exclusion applies to that worksheet.

Authority: O.C.G.A. 48-7-27(a)(5); GA DOR 2025 IT-511 Instructions Booklet, p.21; GA DOR 2024 Local Exemption Status Sheets (form PT-10B), DeKalb, Chattooga, Barrow entries

Read that table as a warning about different income measures. DeKalb H9 tests household federal adjusted gross income plus municipal-bond income, using the prior year's income and age on January 1. A taxable conversion can affect that test even if an available Georgia income-tax exclusion shelters the same income. The timing and remaining eligibility conditions matter; a conversion does not necessarily change the exemption in the same calendar year.

A qualified Roth withdrawal is the mirror image and it is genuinely good news: it never enters federal adjusted gross income, so it cannot trip any federal-AGI test at all. Whether it counts in the county "net income" and "gross income" tests is not addressed in published guidance, which is worth knowing before assuming it is safe everywhere.

There is a counterweight. Some of the most valuable exemptions have no income test whatsoever — Cobb County's total school-tax exemption at 62, and Fulton's newest senior exemptions for 2026 — and those are completely conversion-proof. The practical advice is narrow and unglamorous: before a large conversion, read your own county's exemption terms and find out which income figure it tests.

Two mechanics inside those county tests are worth spelling out, because they are where the surprises live.

DeKalb's “Georgia Net Income” is a separate DOR worksheet, not a tax-return line. Its 2026 guidance allows up to $49,824 for an individual or $99,648 for joint applicants in Social Security and retirement benefits when computing that measure. These are not Georgia's ordinary income-tax retirement exclusions. The guidance does not expressly classify Roth conversion income on the worksheet, so do not assume H3/H4 is conversion-proof. Confirm the classification and exemption conditions with the county.

The second is the statewide floor, which applies everywhere and is easy to overlook because the county programmes are more generous. Georgia grants a $4,000 county exemption at 65 and a school-tax exemption at 62, each with a $10,000 income cap, and a separate floating exemption at 62 that turns on a hard federal adjusted gross income ceiling of $30,000 per household. There is also a property-tax deferral for those 62 and over, and it carries the tightest test of the lot — gross household income of $15,000 or less. Whether a conversion affects that measure depends on the program's income definition and the household's other income.

One question we could not answer, and it matters: whether a tax-free qualified Roth withdrawal counts inside those county "net income" and "gross income" definitions. It plainly cannot touch a federal-AGI test, because it never reaches federal AGI. But the worksheet-based measures are defined administratively rather than by reference to a federal figure, and no published guidance addresses whether a distribution that is not taxable anywhere still counts as income for them. We have graded that unresolved rather than guessing, and a retiree relying on a worksheet-based exemption should ask their county before taking a large distribution of any kind.

Authority: GA DOR Form LGS-Homestead (Rev 10-08) Section C1; DeKalb County Tax Commissioner, 2026 Homestead Exemption Information; O.C.G.A. 48-5-47; O.C.G.A. 48-5-52; GA DOR Property Tax Homestead Exemptions; O.C.G.A. 48-5-72; O.C.G.A. 48-5-72.1 (alternative deferral, counties 550,000+); Emanuel County, GA - Exemptions; GA DOR Form LGS-Homestead (Rev 10-08) Section C1 line 6; no DOR ruling or guidance located on point

Georgia's flat rate means additional taxable income does not move into a higher state rate bracket. It can still affect income-tested provisions. One example is the low income credit, which requires federal adjusted gross income under $20,000 and has other eligibility conditions. That is not an exhaustive finding about every Georgia credit, deduction or benefit.

Authority: O.C.G.A. 48-7A-3; GA DOR Low Income Tax Credit (Tax Credit Code 211); O.C.G.A. 48-7-20(a.1) as amended by HB 463 (2026) Sec. 2-1

Moving to Georgia: convert before, or after?

Georgia is a destination state for retirees, which makes this the mirror image of the question our New York and California guides answer. There the issue is whether the old state can still tax you. Here it is when your conversion becomes a Georgia event — and the answer produces the most useful finding on this page.

Two verified facts combine. First, the exclusion has no residency waiting period: age or qualifying disability can be satisfied in the arrival year; eligible income, ownership and applicable proration still matter. Second, and less obviously, the part-year proration is an income ratio, not a day count. The worksheet separately allocates earned and unearned income between Georgia and everywhere. For example, if an eligible 66-year-old's only retirement-exclusion income is a post-move conversion, its unearned-income ratio can be 1.00; this does not establish that every July arrival keeps the whole allowance. Other income, ownership and Schedule 3 deduction proration must also be checked.

Authority: Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 560-7-4-.02(1); O.C.G.A. §48-7-27(a)(5)(A)(xiii), (a)(5)(D); 2025 IT-511 pp.21, 24; Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 560-7-4-.02(5)(a) (adopted Apr. 5, 2011); 2025 IT-511 p.24

The corollary runs against the usual advice. A pre-move conversion is not Georgia-source retirement income merely because you later become a resident, but it can affect allocation ratios. Other eligible income can still use an exclusion. Compare complete move-year returns, including both states' exclusions, deductions, local taxes and proration; a former marginal rate alone cannot decide timing.

Worked through: a single 66-year-old with no other income converting $100,000 in 2026 pays $998 to Georgia after the exclusion and the $15,000 standard deduction. Converting the same $100,000 before establishing Georgia domicile costs Georgia nothing — but costs whatever the former state charges on $100,000. This is a hypothetical under the stated no-other-income assumptions, not a recommendation for all arrivals. Use independently verified whole-move-year state/local estimates to compare actual alternatives.

Authority: 2025 IT-511 p.21; O.C.G.A. §48-7-20(a.1) and §48-7-27(a)(1)(B), (a)(5)(A) as amended by HB 463 (2026); Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 560-7-4-.02(5); Ga. DOR Residency Filing Requirements; 2025 IT-511 p.26 (Schedule 3, Columns B and C)

Federal law does the rest of the work once you have moved. A federal statute bars any state from taxing the retirement income of someone who is not its resident or domiciliary, and it covers IRAs and Roth IRAs expressly, with no periodic-payment condition of the kind that applies to some nonqualified plans. Georgia's own instruction booklet acknowledges the prohibition. What the statute does not do is launder a conversion done while you were still domiciled elsewhere — timing governs, not the calendar year in which you eventually moved.

Two practical notes. Georgia's residency test is legal residence, and the Department states the filing requirement applies as long as Georgia is your legal residence even during a temporary absence. We were unable to verify, against any official Georgia source, the day-count test that aggregator sites describe — every source stating it was a commercial publisher or a law firm, and Georgia's own regulation defines "resident" purely by cross-reference to the statute without restating any day count. We are therefore not repeating a number we could not confirm. And Georgia publishes no residency-audit guidance comparable to New York's, so there is no official playbook to read on either side of a move.

Authority: Ga. DOR Residency Filing Requirements; 2025 IT-511 p.16 (residency status codes); O.C.G.A. §48-7-1(10); 4 U.S.C. §114(a); Ga. DOR Residency Filing Requirements

Bringing an existing Roth IRA to Georgia is mercifully dull: Georgia starts from federal adjusted gross income, tracks no separate Roth basis, runs no five-year clock of its own, and does not recapture conversions done before you arrived. And because a qualified Roth distribution never enters federal AGI, it never consumes any of the exclusion — so tax-free withdrawals and a taxable conversion are not competing for the same allowance.

Military retirees

Georgia has a separate military retirement exclusion, and the figure circulating in several published summaries is one that never became law. For 2026 the rule is unchanged: $17,500 of military retirement income for taxpayers under 62, plus a second $17,500 if Georgia earned income exceeds $17,500. A 2025 act, HB 266, raises it to $65,000 for individuals under 65 — but only from tax year 2027, and it expressly cannot be stacked with the general retirement income exclusion. So a 66-year-old military retiree takes the general exclusion and gains nothing from the newer provision. One useful asymmetry: for 2026 the base $17,500 is not prorated for part-year residents, where the general exclusion is.

Authority: O.C.G.A. §48-7-27(a)(5.1); 2025 IT-511 pp.21-22; 4 U.S.C. §114(b)(1) (concluding sentence); HB 266 (2025) §§1, 3(b), amending O.C.G.A. §48-7-27(a)(5.1); Ga. DOR 2025 Summary of Enacted Legislation p.11

Creditor protection: excluded, not merely exempt

Georgia's bankruptcy exemption statute distinguishes payments from undisbursed account funds. O.C.G.A. §44-13-100(a)(2)(E)/(F) contains support-necessity conditions for specified payments, while (a)(2.1)(D) separately addresses undisbursed funds in an IRC §408 IRA. It does not expressly name §408A. Georgia's opt-out from the federal exemption list does not erase the separate federal retirement-fund protection in 11 U.S.C. §522(b)(3)(C). A Roth account also requires the distinct estate-exclusion analysis below.

For the owner's own Roth IRAs, a separate holding is important. In 2022 the Eleventh Circuit held that a Georgia debtor's Roth IRA is excluded from the bankruptcy estate entirely, under the federal provision that excludes a beneficial interest in a trust subject to a transfer restriction enforceable under non-bankruptcy law — with Georgia's garnishment statute supplying the restriction. Under that holding, the property never enters the estate, so no dollar ceiling and no support test applies, and the federal inflation-adjusted IRA cap is never reached. The case involved a Roth conversion account as well as a contributory one, so converted balances are squarely inside the holding.

Outside bankruptcy, the garnishment statute exempts IRA funds while they remain in the account, with no dollar cap and no support test. Note the limits: the protection is temporal, so once money is distributed, statutory disposable-earnings limits apply unless another exemption is greater; retirement funds are expressly not exempt from continuing garnishment for support obligations; and while the statute contains no contribution look-back window, a transfer into a protected account remains attackable for actual fraudulent intent — Georgia authority exists on that point and it is unfavourable, having set aside exactly such a transfer made with lawsuits pending.

An inherited Roth IRA requires separate analysis. In Schklar & Heim, LLC v. Jenacova, A24A1449 (Ga. Ct. App. September 23, 2024), the court remanded an inherited-IRA garnishment dispute for clarification without deciding the merits. That order does not establish protection for an inherited Roth IRA, and this review does not certify the later case history. Hoffman's own-account holding must not be extended automatically to inherited accounts; Clark v. Rameker separately limits the federal retirement-fund exemption.

Authority: In re Hoffman, 22 F.4th 1341 (11th Cir. Jan. 24, 2022); 11 U.S.C. §541(c)(2); O.C.G.A. §18-4-6(a)(2), quoted in In re Hoffman, No. 20-12823 (11th Cir. Jan. 24, 2022), at 7; O.C.G.A. §18-4-6(a)(2); Clark v. Rameker, 573 U.S. 122 (2014); 11 U.S.C. §522(b)(3)(C) vs. §541(c)(2); cf. Silliman v. Cassell, 292 Ga. 464 (2013)

What Georgia does not tax

Georgia levies no estate tax and no inheritance tax, and requires no estate tax return. The mechanism is worth stating precisely because it explains why the answer is stable: Georgia's estate tax was never an independent tax but a pickup of the federal state-death-tax credit, and when that credit was phased out federally the state tax had nothing to attach to; the statute was then repealed outright. There is no exclusion amount, no rate schedule and no cliff to plan around, and a Roth IRA balance is includible only for federal estate tax purposes.

A qualified inherited Roth distribution is likewise free of Georgia income tax, since it never enters federal adjusted gross income. One thing does not carry over, though, and it surprises people: the decedent's retirement income exclusion does not pass to a beneficiary. The exclusion depends on the beneficiary's own eligibility, not the decedent's age. A beneficiary aged 62 or older, or permanently and totally disabled regardless of age, may qualify for their own exclusion against eligible taxable IRA income; a younger beneficiary without that disability eligibility does not.

Authority: O.C.G.A. 48-12-1 (as amended by HB 658, 2014); EGTRRA 2001 phase-out of the IRC 2011 state death tax credit; Georgia DOR Estate Tax FAQ; O.C.G.A. 48-7-27(a)(5)(A)(xiv) and (a)(5)(D); 2025 IT-511 Instructions Booklet pp. 21, 24-25 (incl. Subtractions item 27); Georgia DOR Retirees-FAQ. No DOR guidance addresses inherited IRAs.

Georgia against the other six states in this series

The comparison makes Georgia's position legible. It is not a no-tax state, so a conversion can be taxable after applicable deductions and exclusions, including disability-based eligibility before 62. It is not Pennsylvania or Illinois either, where the conversion is free at any age by different mechanisms. Here the answer depends on how old you are AND on which year you act, and the rate you will pay next year is not yet determined. Its creditor analysis distinguishes estate exclusion from exemption. Its senior property-tax rules depend on the particular county and income definition.

Filing mechanics that catch people out

Georgia withholding on IRA distributions is elective, not mandatory. A conversion is a non-periodic payment, and the state withholds nothing on it unless you affirmatively ask on the relevant form. A late conversion can therefore create an estimated-tax issue, but a penalty is not automatic: prior payments, the safe harbor and any applicable annualized-income calculation matter.

The estimated-tax system is four instalments, due in April, June, September and January, and Form 500 UET generally uses the lesser of 100% of the prior year's tax (a filed return covering twelve months is required for that alternative) or 70% of current-year tax after credits. Required instalments must be paid on time; annualization can matter when income arrives late in the year. That 70% figure is unusual and worth noting — it is more forgiving than the federal 90%, which means a large late-year conversion is somewhat easier to cover in Georgia than federally. It still has to be covered.

Part-year filers use the standard return with a part-year residency code and a three-column schedule: one column for income as though you had been a Georgia resident all year, one for the Georgia portion, and the difference between them. That structure is what makes the arrival-timing analysis above work — a conversion done before you established domicile lands outside the Georgia column, which is simultaneously why it escapes Georgia tax and why it cannot help fill the exclusion's numerator.

A nonresident's covered retirement income is not Georgia-source income merely because the person also has Georgia wages. But non-Georgia income can affect return-allocation or proration calculations. Do not read the exclusion-proration worksheet as a blanket promise that a nonresident conversion can have no effect on the Georgia return; confirm the applicable Schedule 3 treatment.

Finally, conformity. Georgia adopts the Internal Revenue Code as enacted through a specific date, advanced by legislation each year, and the current date is January 1, 2026. That matters more than it sounds: a state whose conformity date lags can fail to recognise a new federal retirement provision for a year or more. HB 1199 adopts the January 1, 2026 code date for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2025, subject to Georgia's expressly listed exceptions. A current conformity date is not a promise that every federal provision applies unchanged.

Authority: O.C.G.A. §48-7-101(h), (j) and §48-7-100(8.1); Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 560-7-4-.32; DOR Form G-4P (Rev. 06/03/26); DOR 2026 Employer's Withholding Tax Guide; DOR Form 500 UET (Rev. 07/15/25) and Instructions A-G; DOR Form IT-511 (2025), Estimated Tax; Form 500ES; 2025 IT-511 Instructions Booklet, p.26 (Schedule 3 instructions); Form 500 Schedule 3; Ga. DOR Time Ratio guidance; O.C.G.A. §48-1-2(14); HB 1199 (2026), signed act, §1 and §4(b)

Workplace plans in Georgia

Georgia has no state auto-IRA. SB 226 in the 2025–2026 legislative session would have auto-enrolled private-sector workers without an employer plan into a Roth IRA at 5% of pay; it failed in committee. So unlike New York or California, a Georgia private-sector worker whose employer offers nothing has no state-sponsored default to fall into — an independently opened IRA or an available employer arrangement remains a separate choice, subject to federal eligibility and contribution limits.

Public employees have additional plan options. The state's supplemental programme offers a Roth option in both the 401(k) and the 457(b), with no income limit on either, and the two can run at the same time. The PSR employer match lands pre-tax even when every employee dollar is Roth, and it is taxable on withdrawal — so a state employee contributing entirely to Roth still accumulates a traditional balance they will owe tax on. The GSEPS match increases with service: dollar for dollar up to 5% of pay, then an additional half a percent for each year of service beyond five for members contributing at least 5%, reaching a 9% maximum at thirteen years, while eligible law-enforcement officers contributing at least 5% receive a different schedule reaching 15% at ten years, effective July 1, 2026.

Teachers are the gap. The teachers' retirement system is a pure defined-benefit pension with no Roth feature and no defined-contribution component at all, so a Georgia teacher wanting Roth space has to look to an employer supplemental plan or to their own Roth IRA. The university system's supplemental 403(b) and 457(b) both offer Roth. City, county and local school plans vary plan-by-plan and are inconsistently documented, which is a polite way of saying you have to read your own plan's summary rather than assume.

PSR and USG have announced implementation of the federal Roth age-based catch-up rule from January 1, 2026 for affected participants whose 2025 wages from the sponsoring employer exceeded $150,000. PSR specifies W-2 Box 3 Social Security wages. These are named-plan implementation statements, not a claim about every Georgia public plan. The general transition ended after 2025; final regulations generally apply from 2027, with separate governmental and collectively bargained applicability provisions.

The July 2026 research recorded an older PSR handbook carrying 2022 contribution limits, a 3% match figure and a required-distribution age of 72. That is a dated source observation, not a claim that every currently available handbook remains unchanged. Use the current plan's published terms.

Authority: Georgia State Senate 2026 Composite Status (Session Final, May 14, 2026), p.5; SB 226 (2025-2026 Regular Session); Employees' Retirement System of Georgia (ERSGA), 'Understanding Contributions and Savings Plan Options: Roth Contributions,' dated 12/2025; ERSGA, 'Understanding Contributions and Savings Plan Options: Roth Contributions' (12/2025), Pre-tax vs Roth comparison table and FAQ; ERSGA, 'ERS GSEPS (Tier 3)' plan page; Georgia SB 328 (2008); 2022 match-increase legislation referenced by ERSGA; Teachers Retirement System of Georgia, 'Supplementing Your TRS Benefit' and 'How TRS Benefits You'; 2025 IT-511 Subtractions item 12; University System of Georgia, Retirement and Savings Plan FAQ; Georgia State University HR, 'Important Retirement Information for 2026'; SECURE 2.0 Act Sec. 603; T.D. 10033 (9/16/2025); ERSGA notice 'Required change for PSR 50+ Catch-up Contributions' (published 11/25/2025); USG/GSU HR 2026 retirement information; Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. R. 560-7-4-.02 (unconformed) vs. 2025 IT-511 Instructions Booklet p.21; ERSGA PSR Handbook (undated, c.2022) vs. ERSGA Roth flyer 12/2025

Medicaid long-term care: the payout conditions matter

Georgia's aged, blind and disabled Medicaid rules treat a retirement fund as a countable resource whenever the owner has the option of withdrawing a lump sum, and the state's own manual names Roth IRAs explicitly. For SSI/LA-D, the 2026 resource limits remain $2,000 individual and $3,000 couple. Other ABD categories and spousal-impoverishment rules use different limits; use the applicable category.

A Roth IRA is not barred from the periodic-payment exclusion because it has no lifetime RMD. Section 2332 excludes a retirement fund when the owner is eligible for and receiving periodic payments that include principal; interest- or dividend-only payments are insufficient. The manual expressly includes Roth IRAs and does not make a federal RMD a condition. Neither the absence of an RMD nor federal Roth tax-ordering rules settles whether a particular payout arrangement qualifies. DFCS must determine and document eligibility for the periodic payments.

Two further points. Once periodic payments including principal are being received, Georgia budgets them as income in the eligibility determination rather than ignoring them, against an institutional net income cap. And a retirement fund owned by the community spouse — the spouse who is not applying — is excluded outright, which makes whose name an account is in a consequential detail long before anyone is ill.

Authority: Georgia DFCS Medicaid Policy Manual Section 2332, Retirement Funds (eff. April 2020, MT-59); Georgia DFCS Medicaid Policy Manual Section 2332, Retirement Funds - Requirements, Basic Considerations and Procedures; Georgia DFCS Medicaid Policy Manual Section 2332 (naming Roth IRAs); applied against IRC 408A(c)(4) (no owner-lifetime Roth IRA RMD); SECURE 2.0 Sec. 325 separately addresses designated Roth plan accounts. Section 2332 names Roth IRAs; the treatment of a particular payout arrangement requires DFCS confirmation.; Georgia DFCS Medicaid Policy Manual Section 2332, Basic Considerations; cf. Sections 2304 and 2342 (transfer of assets); Georgia DFCS Medicaid Policy Manual Appendix A1, ABD Financial Limits 2026 (July 2026, MT 80), Charts A1.1, A1.2, A1.3, A1.9

Two smaller mechanics

Two smaller mechanics worth knowing. Georgia's 529 plan gives a deduction of $4,000 per beneficiary a year, $8,000 for joint filers, and a rollover from a 529 to a Roth IRA is treated as a qualified withdrawal at the Georgia level — no deduction recapture and no state tax on earnings. For a nonqualified withdrawal, taxable earnings belong in the account owner's Georgia income, but earnings already included in that owner's federal AGI are not added a second time. A beneficiary who included the earnings federally may subtract them for Georgia if the owner includes them. Separately, the owner recaptures the non-earnings withdrawal multiplied by the proportion of contributions previously deducted for Georgia. That contribution-recapture rule also applies to a rollover to another state's 529; it does not by itself tax the rollover's earnings. See the June 30, 2026 plan supplement, page 4. IRA withholding and estimated-payment timing are separate questions, discussed above.

Authority: Path2College 529 Plan (GA Higher Education Savings Plan) FAQ; IRC 529(c)(3)(E) (SECURE 2.0 sec. 126); O.C.G.A. 48-1-2 as amended by HB 290 (2025); O.C.G.A. §48-7-101(h), (j) and §48-7-100(8.1); Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 560-7-4-.32; DOR Form G-4P (Rev. 06/03/26); DOR 2026 Employer's Withholding Tax Guide; DOR Form 500 UET (Rev. 07/15/25) and Instructions A-G; DOR Form IT-511 (2025), Estimated Tax; Form 500ES

Source discrepancies recorded in July 2026

The July 2026 research recorded discrepancies between older agency material and later law: an earned-income sublimit on a retirees FAQ, an earlier federal-conformity date, older amounts in retirement-exclusion regulation examples, and a repealed code citation in an Attorney General garnishment publication. These are historical observations, not claims that those sources remain unchanged today. Current enacted law and applicable filing instructions govern.

These discrepancies were recorded during the original July 2026 research. A source may subsequently be corrected, so the examples are a dated warning to compare the applicable statute, enrolled legislation and current form, not a claim that every linked page remains unchanged today.

Authority: Re-fetched 2026-07-29; O.C.G.A. §48-7-27(a)(5); HB 1199 (2026); HB 1437 (2022); 2016 Ga. Laws 325

Traps

Debunked

Frequently asked questions

What is deliberately not on this page

Three things we researched are absent, and saying which is part of the point of publishing a dataset alongside an article.

We do not state Georgia's day-count residency test. Commercial tax publishers and law-firm summaries describe one, and it may well exist in the statute — but the official code sits behind a paywalled platform that refused us, and every source we could actually reach that states a day count is a secondary one. Georgia's own regulation defines "resident" purely by cross-reference to the statute without restating any threshold, and the Department's residency page describes the test as legal residence. So we describe legal residence, which we verified, and we leave the threshold to sources that can show you the statutory text. Note the distinction: we are not saying Georgia has no such test. We are saying we could not confirm one.

We do not state whether someone who turns 62 or 65 during a year gets that year's full exclusion. The statute appears to key eligibility to attaining the age during any part of the taxable year, which would mean yes — but we could not reach the operative text, and the regulation delegates the question back to the statute without answering it. Since the practical consequence is whether someone turning 65 in December can convert in January at the higher cap, an unverified answer is worse than none.

And we do not assert that Georgia has no gift tax, though we expect that it does not. The source we had for it turned out not to say what it appeared to say, and a claim resting on a misread citation is not worth making regardless of whether the underlying fact is true.

The dataset

The original July 2026 research assembled a dataset of 127 records, each carrying its statutory or administrative authority, a verbatim quote from the source, a confidence grade and its original verification verdict. In that initial review, of 127 records, 101 were confirmed on re-verification against primary sources and 21 were corrected before publication. Three could not be verified to our standard and were cut rather than hedged — including a widely repeated residency day-count test that no official Georgia source we could reach actually states.

The workbook carries seven sheets, including two bounded worksheets. The conversion worksheet compares a full-year, whole-return before/after state income-tax estimate at 4.99%, before credits. You supply income before retirement subtraction, independently confirmed total eligible retirement subtractions before and after, and whole-return deductions counted once. It does not determine age, spouse, disability or part-year eligibility. The move worksheet compares independently verified whole-move-year state/local estimates; it does not recommend timing from age or a former state's marginal rate. The CSV is one row per fact, with authority, source quote, confidence grade and verification verdict.

This page is educational and is not tax or investment advice. Georgia's rate is scheduled to change and its county property-tax rules vary; verify current figures against the Georgia Department of Revenue and your county tax office before acting. Rate verified as of 2026-07-29.

Selected sources rechecked September 23, 2026: T.D. 10033, §1.414(v)-2; PSR's 2026 catch-up notice; DFCS §2332 retirement funds; 2026 ABD financial limits; DeKalb's 2026 exemption guidance; Hoffman (the owner's own Roth IRAs); California Publication 1005. These checks do not refresh every claim or comparison on this page.

Corrections and updates

September 24, 2026 — Correction. Corrected the catch-up authority to T.D. 10033 and limited implementation statements to the named plans. Removed the inference that no lifetime RMD bars a Roth IRA from Georgia's principal-inclusive periodic-payment exclusion. Corrected DeKalb's separate worksheet and H9 income measure; retained unresolved conversion treatment; removed unsupported inherited-Roth bankruptcy protection and a penalty attributed merely to completing a California conversion. Clarified example assumptions, disability eligibility for beneficiaries, income-tested-credit and nonresident wording; corrected the military act's enactment year and 529 owner/beneficiary recapture; distinguished bankruptcy payments, account funds and inherited-account litigation. Replaced automatic conversion and move recommendations in the download with two bounded worksheets using confirmed whole-return inputs and independently verified move-year estimates. Update. Added the 2026 Medicaid financial-limits appendix checked September 23. Its July effective date does not establish when it became available online; this update does not recast the original July source check as an error. Unchanged source dates are retained. Public correction record.

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