Georgia Sales and Use Tax for Electrical Contractors
the Contractor-as-Consumer Rule, Use Tax, Registration and Returns, Nonresident Subcontractor Withholding and the Nonresident Contractor Bond (O.C.G.A. 48-8 and 48-13-30 to 48-13-38)
O.C.G.A. Title 48, Chapter 8, Article 1 and Chapter 13, Article 2 as published in the 2025 Georgia Code on Justia (read 2026-09-20) · Reviewed 2026-09-21
Georgia taxes the contractor, not the customer. Under O.C.G.A. 48-8-63 a person who contracts to furnish tangible personal property and install it is the consumer of that property: the contractor pays sales tax on the wire, panels, luminaires and fittings when it buys them, and it does not charge its customer sales tax on the installed job. Everything else in this lesson — use tax, registration, returns, the nonresident-subcontractor withholding and the nonresident contractor bond — follows from that rule.
1. The tax itself — 48-8-30
- The state levies a tax on the retail purchase, sale, rental, storage, use or consumption of tangible personal property (and listed services and digital goods). The purchaser pays 4 percent of the sales price to the retailer, who remits it to the Department of Revenue (48-8-30(b)). Local option taxes (LOST, SPLOST, ESPLOST, TSPLOST — Articles 2 to 5 of the chapter) are added on top, so the combined rate in most counties is 7 to 9 percent.
- Use tax (48-8-30(c)): the first use, consumption, distribution or storage in Georgia of property bought at retail outside the state makes the owner a dealer liable for 4 percent of the purchase price (the lesser of price or fair market value if the property was used elsewhere for more than six months), with a credit for like taxes paid to another state. Out-of-state dealers that deliver into Georgia must collect the tax (48-8-30(c.1)).
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