The Internal Revenue Service says that Georgia residents who received state-issued relief checks in 2022 will not have to report that money as income when they file their income taxes.  Officials say they won’t challenge the taxability of payments associated with general welfare and disaster, which would include the refunds received by many Georgia residents last year. The guidance comes several days after the federal government recommended Georgians who received those payments hold off on filing their taxes. Now that the decision has been made, the Internal Revenue Service wants people to move forward with their income tax filings. Residents of Georgia, Massachusetts, South Carolina and Virginia will not owe federal income tax on their special state payments as long as those payments were a refund of state taxes they paid and for which they “claimed the standard deduction or itemized their deductions but did not receive a tax benefit (for example, because the $10,000 tax deduction limit applied).”

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