MillageRate.com

Over 99% of Georgia’s City Councils, County Commissions and School Boards fail to simply do the math.

Governor Sonny Perdue joins the ranks of the numerous elected officials who have no clue about what is wrong with Georgia’s property tax system, or how to fix it. We have written to excess about assessment caps; check out the archives:

Legislation Gov. Sonny Perdue signed into law on Wednesday makes sure of that. House Bill 233, sponsored by Rep. Ed Lindsey (R-Atlanta), prevents local governments from increasing the assessments used to calculate property taxes for three years, ending with the 2012 tax year.

New law freezes property assessment hikes | Gold Dome Live

[The following was sent to the author of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution article here.]

What DeKalb did appears to be exactly CORRECT…. at least, if your interest is in fairly valuing property.

The consideration of foreclosures and other distressed sales does not produce a true market value; it does not contribute to equity and fairness in property taxation.

SB-55 not withstanding, DeKalb did the right thing when it considered available Fair Market Value sales over, or instead of, distressed sales in its valuation of property.

Read more…

House Republicans will try once again to pass HR1, a resolution calling for a vote on a constitutional amendment to impose a permanent, statewide assessment cap. I sent the following to every member of the House by email:

House Democrats– please continue to resist efforts to pass HR1, now incorporated into SR1.

On this issue (statewide assessment cap), YOU ARE RIGHT and the REPUBLICANS ARE WRONG. The harm that this bill will cause is measurable and easily proven.

By resisting SR1/HR1, you will give Georgians REAL TAX RELIEF because you will have protected them from HIGHER TAX RATES caused by ignorant, POLITICALLY-MOTIVATED REPUBLICANS.

I am a conservative, but I am also intellectually honest. I am disgusted by Republicans’ refusal to understand this issue.

Please visit MillageRate.com/blog/ for more info. If you have any questions, you are welcome to contact me at 770-713-8070. Further, I am available to respond on your behalf to any effort by Republicans to use this vote against you.

It takes a two-thirds majority to call a referendum. That means Democrats would have to vote for it. They didn’t. Now the legislation is back. The House Rules Committee pasted it into Senate Resolution 1, state Sen. Chip Rogers repeated effort to get some sort of TABOR amendment into the state constitution.

Georgia Legislative Watch » HR 1 back from the dead

Newton County residents face a millage rate increase this year due to a lower tax digest:

Chief Tax Assessor Tommy Knight said more than 95 percent of residential properties in the county have decreased in value from 2008, with areas losing anywhere from a few percent to more than 30 percent of their value.

Values go down, but will taxes?

Democrat Senators Tim Golden (D-Valdosta) and Doug Stoner (D-Smyrna) have co-authored an editorial highlighting the foundational problem with HB-233, Rep. Edward Lindsey’s assessment cap legislation that passed the Senate yesterday and is headed for the Governor’s desk:

We do need to deal with rising property taxes in a responsible way. State government has actually been a big part of the problem – especially when it comes to shifting the burden to the local level. By handcuffing local governments through drastic funding cuts and unfunded mandates, the state has practically guaranteed that property taxes will go up, and go up they have.

We have railed against this harmful legislation for weeks, but our reasoned analysis fell on deaf ears. Although the two Senators failed to offer the only workable solution to the problems with Georgia’s tax code, they recognized that the State Legislature, with what “solution” it offers, usually just compounds the problem.

Erick at Peach Pundit questions just how committed to `tax relief` the two Democrats are. Neither Senator even voted when the time to oppose HB-233 came.

Valdosta Daily Times – Passing the buck to local governments is not ‘tax relief’