The rest of what we have written about Georgia. Every figure is quoted from Georgia’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.
Dividing property and money in a Georgia divorce
The money picture for a divorce in Georgia: how property gets divided, what Georgia calls spousal support and how it is decided, whether one spouse can be made to pay the other’s legal fees while the case is running, and — the part nobody publishes — whether Georgia’s own income tax follows the federal rule on alimony.
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Every claim is traced to Georgia’s own statute, court rule or revenue department, quoted where the wording carries the meaning. Where we could not verify something, the page says so instead of filling the space. Information, not legal advice — and tax questions in particular need a professional in your state. Corrections: thecusp.app/corrections.
Does Georgia follow the federal alimony rule?
Since 2019, federal law has treated alimony as not deductible by the payer and not taxable to the recipient, for any instrument executed after 31 December 2018. Most people assume every state followed. Most did. Not all.
Georgia’s individual income tax base is federal adjusted gross income, updated to a current IRC conformity date by an annual General Assembly conformity bill (most recently H.B. 1162 in 2024, conforming to the IRC as amended through Jan. 1, 2024). Every annual conformity update since the TCJA’s enactment has adopted the federal AGI computation without carving out an alimony-specific non-conformity addition, so Georgia has followed the TCJA’s non-deductible/non-taxable alimony treatment since it took effect federally.
So the federal answer is your answer: post-2018 instruments, no deduction and no inclusion, on either return.
Source: Georgia Dept. of Revenue, ‘Income Tax Federal Tax Changes’ (describing H.B. 1162 (2024), which ‘adopted to conform to the Internal Revenue Code as amended…enacted on or before January 1, 2024,’ with no alimony non-conformity item listed among Georgia’s federal tax changes since 2018) · source
Conformity: static, reenacted annually — currently conforms to the IRC as amended through January 1, 2024 (applied to tax years beginning on/after January 1, 2023, per H.B. 1162)
Nationally: 36 states follow the federal rule, 9 have no income tax, 4 are decoupled, and 1 — Maine — we could not establish. The full fifty-state table and what each decoupled state does differently.
How property is divided
Georgia is an equitable distribution state. That means the court divides marital property fairly, which is not a synonym for equally. What counts as marital rather than separate property is frequently the whole argument.
Georgia has no single codified property-division standard. The rule that marital property is divided equitably is judge-made, originating in Stokes v. Stokes. We could not retrieve the verbatim opinion text from an official Georgia source, so nothing is quoted here.
Source: Stokes v. Stokes, 246 Ga. 765 (1980), the controlling case; procedural mechanism at O.C.G.A. § 19-5-13
Alimony
Georgia calls it alimony. Using the state’s own word matters when you are searching for forms or reading a statute.
There is no guideline calculation. A judge weighs the statutory factors and reaches a number.
This is the norm and it is why alimony is the least predictable figure in a divorce. Two judges can reach different answers on the same facts and both be right. It also means the strength of your evidence about income, earning capacity and the standard of living during the marriage does real work.
A party shall not be entitled to alimony if it is established by a preponderance of the evidence that the separation between the parties was caused by that party’s adultery or desertion
Source: O.C.G.A. § 19-6-1
Child support
Georgia uses the income shares model — both parents’ incomes go into the calculation, and the result is apportioned between you.
Whichever model applies, this is the most predictable number in your case — there is a formula and a presumption that its output is correct. Deviating from it takes written findings. Run it early; it is free, and it anchors everything else.
Guideline: O.C.G.A. § 19-6-15
How Georgia calculates child support, in detail
Who pays for the lawyers
Fee-shifting provision: O.C.G.A. § 19-6-2(a)-(b)
The grant of attorney’s fees as a part of the expenses of litigation, made at any time during the pendency of the litigation… Nothing contained in this Code section shall be construed to mean that attorney’s fees shall not be awarded at both the temporary hearing and the final hearing
A fee award that only arrives at final judgment is close to worthless to someone who could not afford a lawyer during the case. By then it is over. An interim award is what stops a wealthier spouse winning by attrition.
If you are the lower earner, this is the single most actionable thing on this page. Ask at the first meeting, in these words: “Can we move for an interim award of attorney fees now?” Do not let “we will deal with fees at the end” pass unexamined.
Separately, if custody is contested you may be ordered to pay for a guardian ad litem or a custody evaluator, and the court decides how to split that. What that costs in Georgia, and who bears it.
The thing worth knowing about Georgia
Georgia is one of the few remaining states with an explicit statutory fault bar on alimony: O.C.G.A. § 19-6-1(b) flatly denies alimony to a spouse whose adultery or desertion caused the separation, regardless of financial need.