Georgia Net Worth Tax: Who Owes It and What It Costs

By Dr. Pellumb Kabashi, DBA, MBA, EA, CFE, CES
Founder, Tax Expert Today LLC · Tax advisors, enrolled agents, CPAs, and attorneys · Serving clients in all 50 states

Quick Answer

The Georgia net worth tax is an annual fixed dollar tax on corporations, charged on a table that starts at $125 and stops at $5,000. A corporation with net worth of $100,000 or less owes nothing but still files. The tax is due at the start of the tax year, not the end. Call (239) 441-2005 for a free consultation.

Most Georgia business owners meet the net worth tax by accident. It arrives as a second number on a return they thought was about income, it does not move when profits move, and it is owed by corporations that made nothing at all. The rules behind that second number are not complicated, but almost every published explanation of them stops at the rate table, and several of the explanations circulating right now are carrying a figure that Georgia repealed years ago.

This guide covers who pays, what the current table actually says, why the net worth period on the return runs a year ahead of the income tax period on the same form, and the handful of situations where the tax behaves in ways that surprise even experienced filers.

What is the Georgia net worth tax?

The Georgia net worth tax is an annual privilege tax on corporations, imposed under O.C.G.A. 48-13-72 in exchange for the right to operate in the corporate form in Georgia. It is charged on the corporation’s net worth rather than its income, at a fixed dollar amount taken from a statutory table, and it is reported on the same Form 600 or Form 600S as the corporate income tax.

Georgia therefore runs two entirely separate corporate taxes through one piece of paper. The Form IT-611 instruction booklet says so in its opening paragraph: the instructions “apply to two separate taxes on corporations. One is an income tax on taxable income. The second is a graduated tax based on corporate net worth. Both taxes must be paid annually.” Schedule 3 of the return then combines the two liabilities into a single balance due, which is exactly why so many filers never notice that a second tax was assessed.

• Different base. Income tax is charged on Georgia taxable net income. Net worth tax is charged on issued capital stock, paid-in surplus and retained earnings.
• Different measurement date. Income tax looks back over a completed year. Net worth tax looks at the balance sheet as of the first day of the year.
• Different form of liability. Income tax is a percentage. Net worth tax is a flat dollar figure read off a table.
• Different penalty regime. The two taxes carry different late filing and late payment penalties, covered further down this page.
• Same return. Both are reported on Form 600 for a C corporation or Form 600S for an S corporation.

Elsewhere the same tax goes by other names. Practitioners often call it a franchise tax or a capital stock tax, and search results for Georgia frequently mix it with the franchise tax regimes of other states. Georgia’s statute calls it the corporate net worth tax, and that is the phrase used on the return.

Who has to pay the Georgia net worth tax?

Every corporation incorporated in Georgia owes the net worth tax, along with every domesticated foreign corporation and every out of state corporation doing business or owning property in Georgia. Limited liability companies are caught only if they are taxed as corporations. Partnerships and disregarded single member limited liability companies are outside the tax entirely.

The Department of Revenue answers the entity question directly in its Limited Liability Companies FAQ: “An LLC is only subject to net worth tax if it is treated as a corporation for income tax purposes.” The net worth tax FAQ adds the two matching answers, that there is no net worth tax on partnerships, and that a disregarded single member limited liability company is not subject to it, although a corporate owner of that disregarded entity is.

• Georgia corporations. Liable on 100 percent of net worth, whether or not they do business anywhere.
• Out of state corporations. Liable on the Georgia portion of net worth if they do business or own property in the state.
• S corporations. Liable in full. The pass-through treatment applies to income tax, not to the net worth tax.
• Limited liability companies. Liable only when they have elected corporate treatment for federal purposes.
• Homeowner associations. Not liable if they are not organized for profit, in which case the return carries the words “not organized for profit” in Schedule 2.

The liability reaches further than most owners expect. An Attorney General opinion cited in the annotations to O.C.G.A. 48-13-72 states that a corporation organized under Georgia law is liable for the corporate net worth tax even though the corporation is doing no business in the state and owns no property there, and is taxed on its entire net worth. Incorporation alone is the trigger. The Form IT-611 booklet carries the practical consequence: “A dormant corporation must file a net worth tax return and pay the tax, if applicable, to retain its charter.”

That is the single most common way a Georgia shell entity accumulates a problem. The company stops trading, the owner stops thinking about it, and the corporate charter quietly depends on a return nobody is filing.

How much is the Georgia net worth tax?

The Georgia net worth tax is read off an eighteen step table in O.C.G.A. 48-13-73. Net worth of $100,000 or less produces no tax. The first bracket above that produces $125, and the table climbs in fixed steps to a ceiling of $5,000 for net worth over $22,000,000. There is no percentage and no calculation beyond finding the right row.

• The floor is $125. That is the first non zero entry, applying to net worth over $100,000 and not exceeding $150,000.
• The exemption is $100,000. Below that line the tax is zero, but the return is still required.
• The ceiling is $5,000. A corporation with net worth of $30,000,000 and one with net worth of $3,000,000,000 pay the same amount.
• The steps are uneven. The table moves in $50,000 increments at the bottom and $2,000,000 increments at the top.
• The figures are statutory. They are set in the Code section itself, not in a regulation or an annual notice, so they do not drift year to year.

Source: O.C.G.A. 48-13-73(a), reproduced identically in the Net Worth Tax Table on page 19 of the Form IT-611 instruction booklet. The booklet prints two headings above the same figures, one for domestic and domesticated foreign corporations using Schedule 2, Line 4, and one for foreign corporations using Schedule 2, Line 6.

One consequence of a flat table deserves attention before moving on. Because every entry is a dollar figure rather than a percentage, the Georgia net worth tax weighs most heavily on the smallest corporations that owe it. A company with net worth of $150,000 pays $125, which is about eight hundredths of one percent. A company at the $22,000,000 ceiling pays $5,000, which is about two hundredths of one percent. Per dollar of net worth, the small corporation carries close to four times the burden.

Is there still a $10 minimum Georgia net worth tax?

No. Georgia repealed the sub-$100,000 brackets and the $10 minimum for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2018. The current table begins at $125 and the first $100,000 of net worth is exempt. Any source quoting a $10 minimum is describing law that has not applied for several years.

This matters because the stale figure is still in wide circulation. At the time of writing, the Google AI Overview for this exact topic states that the tax ranges “from $10 to a maximum of $5,000,” and a search result on the same page of results correctly notes that Georgia “had collected a minimum of $10 net worth tax” and that “there is no longer a minimum net worth tax.” Two positions apart, on one screen, in direct contradiction.

• The repealing act. Ga. L. 2017, p. 637, Senate Bill 133, rewrote O.C.G.A. 48-13-73.
• The effective date. Section 3-1(b) of that act applies it to all taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2018.
• Where the old figure survives. Attorney General opinions from 1954 and 1957 discussing the $10 minimum are still printed in the annotations under the statute.
• What replaced it. A clean exemption for net worth of $100,000 or less, with the filing obligation left in place.
• What did not change. The $5,000 ceiling, which has sat at the top of the table across the rewrite.

The Department of Revenue states the current rule plainly on its corporate tax page: “For net worth years beginning on or after January 1, 2018 (those reported on the 2017 income tax return), corporations with a net worth of $100,000 or less are not subject to tax but must file a return.” Read the second half of that sentence carefully. The exemption removes the payment, not the filing.

When is the Georgia net worth tax due?

The annual net worth tax return is due on the fifteenth day of the fourth month following the beginning of a C corporation’s taxable period, or the third month for an S corporation. The tax itself is due on the first day of the tax period under O.C.G.A. 48-13-76. Georgia measures this deadline forward from the start of the year, not back from the end of it.

That single structural point causes more confusion than any other feature of the tax. Nearly every other business tax deadline in the United States is set by reference to a year that has finished. The Georgia net worth tax is set by reference to a year that is beginning.

Sources: Form IT-611 and Form IT-611S instruction booklets, Initial Net Worth Filing and Due Dates; O.C.G.A. 48-13-76(a), which provides that the tax “shall be due on the first day of the tax period.” The booklet also records a change worth noting for fiscal filers and new entities: for C corporations the initial return moved from the third month to the fourth month for net worth years beginning on or after January 1, 2017.

Corporations that obtain a federal extension get more room on the income tax side. The Form IT-611S booklet states that corporate taxpayers are granted seven months to file the Georgia return where an automatic six month federal extension has been received. An extension to file, however, is never an extension to pay, and on the net worth side the late payment penalty is the flat figure described later on this page.

Why does the net worth year on the return run ahead of the income tax year?

Because the two taxes measure opposite directions in time. The income tax on Form 600 reports a year that has closed. The net worth tax on the same form prepays a year that is opening. The Department of Revenue states that the net worth beginning and ending dates “would be one year later than the income tax beginning and ending dates.”

The Department gives its own worked example in the net worth tax FAQ. Where the income tax period runs from January 1 to December 31 of one year, the net worth period entered on the same return runs from January 1 to December 31 of the following year. One document, two calendars.

• Income tax dates. The completed accounting year being reported.
• Net worth dates. The twelve months beginning the day after that year closed.
• Net worth figure used. The prior year ending balance sheet, which is the same thing as the opening balance sheet of the new net worth year.
• Practical effect. A corporation that closes in year two has already paid net worth tax covering part of year two.
• Common error. Entering the income tax dates in both date fields, which misstates the period the payment covers.

The reason sits in the statute rather than in Department practice. O.C.G.A. 48-13-76(a) provides that the corporate net worth tax “shall be due on the first day of the tax period,” and that the annual tax period is the same period the corporation adopts for state income tax purposes. A corporation that files no Georgia income tax return at all defaults to a January to December net worth period.

Does Public Law 86-272 protect a corporation from the Georgia net worth tax?

No. Public Law 86-272 shields an out of state corporation from state income tax where its Georgia activity is limited to solicitation of orders for tangible personal property filled from outside the state. That federal protection does not extend to the Georgia net worth tax, and the Department of Revenue says so in both corporate instruction booklets.

The language is unambiguous. Both the Form IT-611 and the Form IT-611S booklets state that “the Public Law 86-272 exemption does not apply to the net worth tax, Form 600 or 600S must be filed with Georgia and the net worth tax must be paid if due.”

• What the federal statute covers. Net income taxes only, by its own terms.
• What Georgia still charges. The net worth tax, which is a privilege tax rather than an income tax.
• What the protected corporation files. A full Form 600 or 600S with zero entered on Schedule 1, Line 8, and a statement claiming the protection.
• The box on page one. The booklet directs the corporation to check the Public Law 86-272 box on the first page of the form.
• Who this catches. Out of state distributors and manufacturers with Georgia sales representatives and no other Georgia footprint.

This is the most valuable single fact on this page for a company headquartered outside Georgia. A business can be entirely correct in concluding that it owes no Georgia income tax, file nothing on that basis, and still be accruing an unfiled net worth return every year with a flat penalty attached to it. The same analysis matters in reverse for Florida and Texas businesses expanding north. A Texas company crossing into Georgia should compare the exposure to the one it already knows at home, which our guide to the Texas franchise tax covers in detail.

How is the net worth tax apportioned for an out of state corporation?

A foreign corporation pays Georgia net worth tax on the portion of its net worth employed in Georgia, computed on a two factor ratio of property and gross receipts under O.C.G.A. 48-13-75. This is a different formula from the one factor gross receipts formula Georgia uses for corporate income tax, so the two apportionment percentages on one return will rarely match.

Georgia moved its corporate income tax apportionment to a single gross receipts factor years ago. The Form IT-611 booklet presents it under the heading “ONE FACTOR FORMULA.” The net worth apportionment never followed. It still uses the older pairing of assets and receipts, which means the Schedule 8 ratio driving the net worth calculation is computed on a different basis from the income apportionment on Schedules 6 and 7.

The inclusion of intangibles is the detail that catches preparers. The Department’s FAQ is specific: “For net worth tax purposes tangible and intangible assets, like cash, accounts receivable, allowance for bad debts, accumulated depreciation, etc. are included.” A services company holding most of its value in receivables and cash therefore carries a Georgia property factor even though it owns nothing physical in the state.

• Everywhere amount. The ending balance sheet asset total from the federal return.
• Within Georgia amount. Calculated from assets actually owned in Georgia.
• Partnership interests. A corporate partner adds its pro rata share of partnership property and gross receipts to both numerator and denominator.
• Domesticated foreign corporations. Taxed on total net worth at 100 percent and told not to use the Schedule 8 ratio at all.
• Alternate methods. O.C.G.A. 48-13-75(b) lets the Commissioner provide by regulation for a different apportionment where the statutory formula does not reflect the volume of Georgia business.

What counts as net worth on Form 600 and Form 600S?

Net worth for Georgia purposes is issued capital stock plus paid-in surplus plus retained earnings, taken from the balance sheet on the first day of the net worth taxable year. Treasury stock is not deducted from issued capital stock. For a new corporation the figure is the beginning net worth shown on federal Schedule L.

The definition is narrower than the ordinary accounting meaning of the term, and the treasury stock rule is the place where a mechanical reading of the balance sheet produces the wrong answer. A corporation that has bought back a meaningful block of its own shares will show reduced equity on Schedule L and must add that reduction back for Georgia.

• Issued capital stock. Stated at issued value, without reduction for shares held in treasury.
• Paid-in surplus. Amounts contributed above stated capital.
• Retained earnings. Described in the statute and the booklet as earned surplus.
• Schedule L is mandatory. The booklet requires Schedule L on the Georgia copy of the federal return even where federal rules do not require it.
• Deficit net worth. A corporation with negative net worth files the return but owes no net worth tax.

The Schedule L requirement is easy to miss on a small corporation. Federal rules relieve smaller filers of the balance sheet schedules, and a preparer who relies on that relief will hand Georgia a return with no supporting figure for the tax the state is actually assessing.

What happens on an initial net worth tax return?

A new corporation files an initial net worth tax return based on its net worth at the date of incorporation or qualification. It cannot be combined with the first income tax return because the due dates do not coincide. If the initial period is less than six months the tax is halved under O.C.G.A. 48-13-73(b), and a full year of net worth tax is then due with the first income tax return.

The Department’s FAQ walks a concrete example. A corporation incorporated on March 18 that chooses an October 31 year end files an initial net worth return covering March 18 to October 31. Because that period exceeds six months, a full year of net worth tax is due. The first income tax return then covers income for March 18 to October 31 and net worth for November 1 of that year through October 31 of the next.

• Two returns in the first year. An initial net worth return, then a combined income and net worth return.
• No income data on the first one. The FAQ states that no income tax information is reported on the initial net worth return.
• The six month test. An initial period under six months halves the tax; six months or more carries the full amount.
• A full year always follows. “A full year’s net worth tax is always due with this first income tax return.”
• Qualification counts. An out of state corporation qualifying with the Secretary of State starts the clock on the qualification date.

The practical failure here is timing rather than arithmetic. A corporation formed in Georgia in the spring has a net worth return due before it has produced a single financial statement, and before most owners have engaged a preparer at all. Liability for the tax, as the Attorney General opinion under O.C.G.A. 48-13-72 puts it, “first attaches on the date of incorporation.”

How is the net worth tax computed on a short period return?

For a short period that is neither an initial nor a final return, the net worth tax is computed on the net worth per the ending balance sheet of the short period and then prorated by the number of months in that period. Georgia rounds the period ends, moving a period ending on the first through the fifteenth back to the prior month end.

The Form IT-611 booklet supplies the arithmetic. A corporation filing a three month short period return with Georgia taxable net worth of $900,000 on the closing balance sheet finds $500 on the table, multiplies by three twelfths, and owes $125.

• Base figure changes. A short period uses the ending balance sheet rather than the opening one.
• Proration is by month. Tax per the scale multiplied by months over twelve.
• Rounding rule, backward. Periods ending on the first through the fifteenth are backed up to the last day of the preceding month.
• Rounding rule, forward. Periods ending on the sixteenth or later move forward to the last day of that month.
• Initial and final returns are excluded. They follow their own rules described above and below.

Does a dormant or unprofitable corporation still owe the Georgia net worth tax?

Yes in most cases, and this is where the tax diverges hardest from ordinary expectations. The Georgia net worth tax has no relationship to profit. A corporation that lost money, traded not at all, or never opened its doors still files, and it still pays if its net worth exceeds $100,000.

Three separate rules in the instruction booklet stack together here, and each one closes a door that an owner might reasonably expect to be open.

• Dormant corporations. “A dormant corporation must file a net worth tax return and pay the tax, if applicable, to retain its charter.”
• Deficit net worth. A corporation with negative net worth must file a return but does not owe the tax.
• Admitted foreign corporations. They must keep filing “until it has withdrawn from Georgia,” not until they stop trading there.
• Zero income tax filers. The FAQ confirms the net worth portion is required “even if the corporate income tax portion of the return does not have to be filed.”
• Registration alone. The same FAQ extends the obligation to any corporation “registered with the Secretary of State.”

Note the asymmetry between the second and the first of those. Losing money does not excuse the tax. Only losing enough money to drive net worth negative does, and by then the corporation has larger problems. A profitable corporation that distributes everything and keeps its retained earnings low can sit under the $100,000 line legitimately, which is one of the few planning levers this tax offers.

Does a corporation on a composite return still file a net worth tax return?

Yes. A composite return satisfies the Georgia income tax obligation of the members included on it, and nothing more. The regulation governing composite returns states directly that a corporation included on one “is still required to file a separate net worth tax return to pay the net worth tax that is due to Georgia.”

The sentence appears in Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 560-7-8-.34, immediately after the list of member types that may be included on Form IT-CR. It is a single line inside a long regulation about a different subject, which is exactly why it gets missed. Our companion guide to the Georgia composite return covers the choice between Form IT-CR, nonresident withholding and individual filing in full.

• What the composite covers. Georgia income tax on the distributive share of the members listed.
• What it does not cover. Any net worth tax owed by a corporate member.
• Who is exposed. Corporate partners and corporate members of a Georgia partnership or limited liability company.
• What they file. Their own Form 600 or 600S carrying the net worth portion.
• The pattern to watch. An entity that believes the composite return closed out every Georgia filing for every owner.

What are the penalties for filing or paying the net worth tax late?

Georgia charges a flat 10 percent penalty for delinquent filing of the net worth tax and a second flat 10 percent for delinquent payment, under O.C.G.A. 48-13-79, plus interest. These are not the income tax penalties. The income tax penalties accrue monthly and cap at 25 percent, while the net worth penalties apply in full on day one.

Two different penalty regimes therefore run on one return. The Form IT-611 booklet sets them side by side when it explains extensions: late payment penalties run at “income tax at 1/2 of 1% per month up to 25% of the tax due; net worth tax at 10%.”

The practical difference shows up on small balances filed a few days late. On the income tax side, a return one day past the deadline picks up 5.5 percent. On the net worth side the same single day picks up 20 percent, because both flat penalties have already attached. A $125 net worth tax filed and paid one day late can therefore carry $25 of penalty.

Two further points are worth knowing before an extension is relied on. First, the booklet warns that failing to check the extension box on the face of Form 600 “will result in assessment of a late filing penalty,” regardless of the extension actually held. Second, penalties and interest accrue from the statutory due date whatever the extension says, which is the same trap that catches individual filers correcting a prior year through a Georgia amended tax return.

How does the net worth tax interact with the Georgia pass-through entity election?

It does not interact at all, and that is the point worth understanding. The pass-through entity election under O.C.G.A. 48-7-21(b)(7) changes where Georgia income tax is paid. It changes nothing about the net worth tax, which the electing S corporation continues to compute and pay on its own Form 600S.

An S corporation making the election pays Georgia income tax at the entity level at the individual rate for the year. The net worth tax sits alongside that, unchanged, because it was never a tax on income in the first place. The mechanics of the election itself, including who benefits and how the federal deduction works, are covered in our guide to the Georgia pass-through entity tax.

• The election moves income tax. From the shareholders to the entity.
• The net worth tax never moved. It has always been an entity level charge.
• Rate linkage applies to one of them. The entity level income tax rate follows the individual rate; the net worth table is fixed in dollars.
• Both appear on Form 600S. Combined through Schedule 3 into a single balance.
• Qualified subchapter S subsidiaries. A QSSS and its parent file separate net worth tax returns even though they are one entity federally.

The QSSS rule is a genuine outlier. Federal law treats a qualified subchapter S subsidiary as a division of its parent, with no separate return. Georgia’s net worth tax ignores that entirely. The booklet and the FAQ both confirm that the subsidiary and the parent file separately, with a “QSSS Exempt” box on page one of Form 600S for a parent that has no independent Georgia presence. The same logic runs through consolidated groups: where affiliated corporations file a consolidated Georgia income tax return, “a separate net worth tax return must be filed by each subsidiary.”

What happens to the net worth tax when a corporation closes or leaves Georgia?

A corporation that has been liquidated and is filing its final income tax return does not file a net worth tax return, and it does not get any of its previously paid net worth tax back. Because the tax is charged at the start of a period, a corporation that dissolves early in a year has already paid for time it will not use.

The rule is stated in the Form IT-611 booklet and reinforced by the annotations under the statute: a corporation that liquidates or merges during a taxable year is not entitled to a refund of a pro rata part of the annual corporate net worth tax. There is no exit proration to match the entry proration.

• Final income tax return. Filed with no net worth tax return attached.
• No refund. Prepaid net worth tax stays with the state.
• Withdrawal, not inactivity. A foreign corporation keeps filing until it formally withdraws from Georgia.
• Charter maintenance. A dormant corporation that stops filing risks its charter rather than saving the tax.
• Timing lever. Where a dissolution is already planned, its position relative to the start of the net worth year decides whether a further full year is charged.

That last point is the only meaningful planning opportunity the tax presents on the way out. A corporation winding down in December and a corporation winding down in January face the same economics and a different bill.

Why is the net worth tax a growing share of a Georgia corporation’s tax bill?

Because one of the two taxes on Form 600 is falling and the other is not. Georgia has cut its income tax rate in steps, from 5.75 percent to 5.39 percent for 2024, 5.19 percent for 2025 and 4.99 percent for tax years beginning in 2026. The net worth table has not changed since the 2017 rewrite took effect in 2018.

The rate figures come from the Department of Revenue. The Form IT-611 booklet states that “the tax rate for the taxable year beginning on or after January 1, 2025 is 5.19%,” and the Department’s Important Tax Updates page states that for 2026 “the Georgia income tax rate has been reduced to a flat rate of 4.99%.” At the time of writing, the Department’s own Corporate Income and Net Worth Tax page still shows 5.19 percent, which is correct for 2025 and behind for 2026. Always read a Georgia rate together with the year it belongs to.

• Income tax direction. Downward, in legislated steps, with further reductions contingent on state revenue performance.
• Net worth tax direction. Flat, in fixed dollars, unchanged since 2018.
• Effect on profitable corporations. The net worth charge becomes a larger fraction of a shrinking total.
• Effect on loss making corporations. The net worth tax is 100 percent of the Georgia bill, because there is no income to tax.
• Effect on Public Law 86-272 corporations. Identical, for the same reason.

There is a second asymmetry inside that trend. Georgia’s business incentives are built on the income tax side of the return, including the transferable credit described in our guide to the Georgia film tax credit, so they reach the tax that is already shrinking. For anyone comparing states, the structure is familiar even where the label differs. Georgia’s charge behaves much like the entity level minimum taxes found elsewhere, including the one described in our guide to the California LLC franchise tax, in that it is owed before any question of profit arises.

What are the most common Georgia net worth tax mistakes?

The recurring errors are structural rather than arithmetic. Nobody gets the table wrong, because the table is a lookup. What goes wrong is the filing obligation, the period entered, the assumption that some other protection or election covers it, and the belief that a corporation with no activity has nothing to file.

• Treating the exemption as a filing exemption. Net worth of $100,000 or less means no tax and a required return.
• Entering income tax dates as the net worth period. The net worth dates run one year later.
• Assuming Public Law 86-272 covers it. The federal shield reaches income tax only.
• Assuming a composite return covers a corporate member. The regulation says it does not.
• Letting a dormant Georgia corporation lapse. The charter depends on the filing.

A sixth pattern deserves its own line because it is the most expensive one. An out of state corporation that concludes correctly that it owes no Georgia income tax often files nothing at all, for years. Each of those years carries an unfiled net worth return and a flat 10 percent filing penalty on whatever the table produced, with interest running from each statutory due date. The tax is small. The accumulation of penalties on an unfiled series is not.

Owners who also hold Georgia real estate should review the separate withholding rules that apply on a sale, which our guide to the Georgia capital gains tax covers, and anyone who moved into or out of the state during the year should read the Georgia part-year resident tax return rules on the individual side.

Georgia Net Worth Tax Help in Naples & Southwest Florida

Our office sits on Tamiami Trail North, a few minutes from the Collier County line, and a large share of the corporate work that comes through it has a Georgia component. Southwest Florida is full of owners who kept a Georgia entity alive after moving south, and an entity that still exists is an entity that still files. Georgia clients are served nationwide from Naples, Florida, and the net worth return is usually the first thing we check on an entity that has been quiet for a few years.

Tax Expert Today LLC
11983 Tamiami Trail N, Naples, FL 34110
Phone: (239) 441-2005
Hours: Monday to Friday, 10:00 to 5:00 ET

A local question we hear often: I moved to Naples years ago but never dissolved my Georgia corporation. Do I still owe anything? Almost certainly yes. Georgia liability attaches to incorporation rather than to activity, and a Georgia corporation that has never been formally dissolved has been accruing a filing obligation the whole time, with the charter itself depending on those returns. The first step is establishing how many years are open, not paying anything. If you are also weighing what Georgia still reaches after a move, our overview of Georgia tax services sets out the wider picture, and retirees should read the Georgia retirement income exclusion rules alongside it.

When to Engage a Professional

Most corporations can read the net worth table without help. The situations below are the ones where the cost of getting it wrong runs well past the size of the tax itself, and where a review by a qualified advisor pays for itself.

• Unfiled years on a dormant or forgotten entity. Sequence matters, and so does the order in which years are brought forward.
• Public Law 86-272 positions. A protected corporation still has a Georgia filing obligation that needs to be established and kept current.
• Foreign corporation apportionment. The two factor net worth ratio has to be built separately from the income apportionment on the same return.
• Initial and final year sequencing. Two returns in year one, no net worth return in the final year, and no refund of what was prepaid.
• Groups with subsidiaries. Consolidated filers and qualified subchapter S subsidiaries file separate net worth returns regardless of how they file federally.
• A shareholder who has died. The entity keeps filing while the estate is administered, alongside the separate questions covered in our guide to the Georgia inheritance tax.

Tax Expert Today LLC advises on state tax matters nationwide, including Georgia Department of Revenue corporate filings and multi-state entity questions. Call (239) 441-2005 to discuss your situation.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Georgia net worth tax rate? There is no rate. The Georgia net worth tax is a fixed dollar amount taken from a table in O.C.G.A. 48-13-73, beginning at $125 for net worth over $100,000 and ending at $5,000 for net worth over $22,000,000. Net worth of $100,000 or less produces no tax.

Does an LLC pay Georgia net worth tax? Only if it is taxed as a corporation. The Department of Revenue states that an LLC is subject to the net worth tax only where it is treated as a corporation for income tax purposes. An LLC filing as a partnership, and a disregarded single member LLC, are both outside the tax.

Is there a minimum Georgia net worth tax? No. The $10 minimum was repealed by Senate Bill 133 for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2018. The current table starts at $125, and corporations below the $100,000 net worth threshold owe nothing while still being required to file a return.

When is the Georgia net worth tax due? The annual return is due on the fifteenth day of the fourth month following the beginning of the tax period for a C corporation, or the third month for an S corporation. Under O.C.G.A. 48-13-76 the tax itself is due on the first day of the tax period.

Does Public Law 86-272 apply to the Georgia net worth tax? No. Both Georgia corporate instruction booklets state that the Public Law 86-272 exemption does not apply to the net worth tax, and that Form 600 or 600S must be filed and the net worth tax paid if due, even where the corporation owes no Georgia income tax.

Does a dormant Georgia corporation owe net worth tax? Yes if its net worth exceeds $100,000, and it must file in either case. The instruction booklet states that a dormant corporation must file a net worth tax return and pay the tax, if applicable, in order to retain its corporate charter.

How is the Georgia net worth tax apportioned for an out of state company? A foreign corporation is taxed on the share of net worth employed in Georgia, using a ratio of property and gross receipts within Georgia to the totals everywhere. The property factor includes intangible assets such as cash and accounts receivable.

Does a corporation on a Georgia composite return still file a net worth return? Yes. Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 560-7-8-.34 states that a corporation included on a composite return is still required to file a separate net worth tax return to pay the net worth tax due to Georgia. The composite return settles income tax only.

What is the penalty for a late Georgia net worth tax return? O.C.G.A. 48-13-79 imposes a flat 10 percent penalty for delinquent filing and a further flat 10 percent for delinquent payment, plus interest at the rate set by O.C.G.A. 48-2-40. These flat penalties are separate from the monthly income tax penalties on the same return.

Do I get a refund of net worth tax if I dissolve mid-year? No. A corporation filing a final income tax return does not file a net worth tax return and is not entitled to a refund of any part of the net worth tax already paid for that period, because the tax attaches at the beginning of the tax period rather than accruing across it.

Published September 11, 2026 by Dr. Pellumb Kabashi « Back to Learning Center