My calendar says we’re now squarely into July, and it’s time for a seasonal adjustment. In Georgia, this means complaints should now focus on two distinct areas: the oppressive heat, or property tax increases. Tis the season, or something.
The truth is, there’s not much any of us can do about either. It’s also somewhat futile to try and explain the weather other than to say “It’s summer, it does this every year, and why are you acting surprised by this?”. Property taxes, however, have a bit more background and nuance, at least as far as understanding why things are the way they are.
Property taxes are solely a function of local tax revenues. The state quit taking a cut of your property tax bills decades ago. Note to those of you who want our tax structure to be more like Texas: Their legislature is in a special session trying to figure out how to lower Texans’ property tax burden, which is roughly double what an average Georgian pays.
Back here in Georgia, property taxes are set by multiple authorities that will differ slightly depending on where in the state you live. In all locations you will have a county government and a local school board, each wanting their take. If you live within a city, that’s another level of taxing authority added to your bill, though you’ll also get a credit from the county for the services that the city provides to avoid duplicate charges.
Each county has a tax assessor who is responsible for setting the value of each property. The total value of all properties is known as the “tax digest”. The board of education, county, and city if applicable each decide on their budget for the year, then divide that among all the property owners to determine their share of the total tax bill for each property.
This is all relatively mundane and boring until the values of properties start to increase rapidly, and/or the amount of the actual tax bills increase. When these notices begin to flow…
Read the full article here