How Much Sales Tax Revenue Did Henry County Collect in 2024?

Henry County has an 8% local sales tax rate. This includes 4% state sales tax and 4% local sales tax. How much sales tax revenue did that generate for Henry County in 2024? Let’s take a look.

Breaking Down the 8% Sales Tax Rate

The 8% sales tax rate breaks down to include the following:

• 4% state sales tax which goes to the state’s annual budget, a large portion of which returns to local school districts for public K-12 education.
• 1% Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) in place since the 1970s and remains in place pursuant to Henry County and the four cities renegotiating the revenue split after each decennial census. Funds are split between Henry County and the four cities to reduce property taxes.
• The remaining three programs are all Special Purpose Local Option Sales Taxes (SPLOST). Voters consider whether to renew each program every 5-6 years.
  
  SPLOST funds cannot be spent on operating or maintenance costs. They may only be spent on capital projects.
• 1% SPLOST to pay for capital projects, such as county buildings, fire stations and parks, & road improvements in Henry County and the four cities. Voters last renewed it in November 2024. The next referendum will be in November 2030.
• 1% Transportation SPLOST to pay for road improvements in Henry County and the four cities. Voters approved the county’s first T-SPLOST in November 2021; a renewal vote will tentatively be on the ballot in November 2026.
• 1% Education SPLOST to pay for new schools, classrooms, school buses, student laptops and other capital projects by Henry County Schools. Last renewed in spring 2021; next election tentatively in spring 2026.

Sales Tax Revenue 2024

The below information looks at the total collections for each sales tax in 2024. Most programs are then split between Henry County and the four cities. The E-SPLOST program goes entirely to the school district.

The Georgia Department of Revenue distributes collections on a one-month lag. This means if a consumer makes a purchase in January, then the retailer pays that sales tax to the state in February. The state then distributes January collections to the local governments at the end of February. The below data looks at January to December 2024 collections, or February 2024 to January 2025 distributions.

With all that said, here are the numbers:

Some may ask “if each tax is 1%, then why are the numbers different?” For transportation SPLOST specifically, some purchases are exempt from T-SPLOST. These exemptions mainly cover the sale of gas, diesel and jet fuel. For the other categories, I’m not sure why the numbers aren’t consistent.

Revenue Split

The LOST, SPLOST and T-SPLOST revenues are then split between Henry County and the four cities. That split is generally based on population. For 2024, the LOST revenue was split in the following way:

• 62.77% - Henry County ($38.2 million)
• 14.73% - Stockbridge ($9.0 million)
• 11.5% - McDonough ($7.0 million)
• 5.5% - Locust Grove ($3.3 million)
• 5.5% - Hampton ($3.3 million)

SPLOST and T-SPLOST revenue splits can vary slightly from the above breakdown, depending on each program’s intergovernmental agreement (IGA) between the county and cities, if such agreement is in place.

Featured image shows pennies scattered on a table. Stock photo.