Georgia state income tax bullshit

[sparr]

If you make $10k in Georgia and are eligible for the $5k standard deduction, you owe GA state income tax on $5000 of taxable income.
If you lived here only half the year and made $10k in Tennessee during the other half, your $5k standard deduction is cut in half, resulting in $7500 of your Georgia income being taxable in Georgia.

I call shenanigans.

A friend suggested this arrangement could be to disincentivize tax sheltering, which is admittedly a concern since TN (among a few other states) does not have a state income tax. Even if that reason is sound, which I do not agree with, this is a bogus implementation. It very unfairly affects lower income residents, particularly those with balanced in and out of state incomes. If you make $100k in TN and $10k in GA, your GA taxable income goes up to (almost) $10k, which only reduces your tax-shelter factor by about 5%. While in the first example case (much closer to my situation), of a low balanced income, the obviously-not-a-tax-shelter tax-shelter factor is reduced by 25%.

The total difference is, to be realistic, only about $60 in taxes, but it is $60 that I should not have to pay!

I would actually be less annoyed if GA claimed a right to tax my TN income.  I would still disagree, but on a more fundamental policy basis rather than on a "what idiot designed this system" basis.
 

Comments

[idav5d.livejournal.com]

Your logic is flawed weedhopper! Had you been in the state the full year, earning at the same rate, you would have earned twice as much! Allowing one half of the deduction is fair. You have been spoiled living in a state with no personal income tax...

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

An excellent point, and one I cannot entirely disagree with. However, even if that is good policy, the implementation still seems unsound to me. If I make $100k in TN and $10k in GA then my GA taxable income only goes up about $5k ($4545, actually), how does that accurately reflect your position? I am only being taxed as if I [would have] made about $25k in GA.

In short, GA DOR math:
$10k+$10k=$20k
$10k+$100k=$25k

[idav5d.livejournal.com]

I'm the last person to defend the tax man, but it seems to me, they're concerned with what you make in Ga. and how long you've been a resident. My point is, that you're not being oppressed any more than the rest of us, only on a sliding scale.. If I could shelter half of my income in Tn. I'd be happy... Perhaps I should look at moving my mail drop business there...

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

Ahh, but again, the implementation is the sticking point. If they based it on how long I had lived in GA (which they actually ask for on the form, but then ignore in the math), that would also be less unacceptable.