Bad legislation like Rep. Edward Lindsey’s property assessment freeze will force local governments to temper millage rollbacks or even increase rates when they might normally remain stable:
The next several years could be lean ones for Morgan County as actions by state legislators come home to roost.
County Finance Director Mia Wilson and County Manager Michael Lamar painted a potentially grim picture for the county at the commissioners’ regular meeting Tuesday, telling elected officials that revenues from ad valorem taxes after this year will be frozen. At the same time, the state of Georgia has not specified in its budget when and from where county reimbursement funds for the new Forest Land Protection Act (FLPA)-an estimated $900,000 the county was expecting to receive from the state-will appear.
County struggles to balance budget | Morgan County Citizen Online
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
[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
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’
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