MillageRate.com

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

If you want to know about effective property tax reform, don’t ask a politician. Check with a professional:

“Every state that has implemented this — California, Colorado, and Florida — has ended up with higher property taxes,” he said. “The perception behind this is crazy. Tax bills are dictated by budgets. You start freezing values and only updating recent sells or new construction and rates will go up.”

Dobbs said especially in a year when the state is cutting back allocations to counties for road paving, the idea of freezing values was poorly thought out. He said they are virtually guaranteeing that local government will be forced to raise tax rates to cover the loss from frozen values and fewer state grants.

Pickens County Progress – Pickens Chief Tax Appraiser predicts confusion and frustration with property tax value freeze

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?