Protect Your Rights – DON’T Opt Out

Sub­mit­ted by Joene DePlancke Rueck­ert

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I am unable to attend any of the pub­lic meet­ings in Gilmer Coun­ty regard­ing HB 581, but every­one else should. Accord­ing to Steve Gooch, our State Sen­a­tor, HB 581 PROTECTS HOMEOWNERS from increas­es in prop­er­ty assess­ments more than the Con­sumer Price Index (CPI). It does not restrict the Coun­ty, the cities or the School Board from increas­ing rev­enue. The Coun­ty would just have to admit it was rais­ing your tax­es by increas­ing the mill­age rate.

They would have to have 3 pub­lic hear­ings and adver­tise they are increas­ing your tax­es. OR they could reduce spend­ing. HB 581 pre­vents the Coun­ty from reassess­ing your prop­er­ty val­ue hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars there­by increas­ing YOUR PROPERTY TAXES. Uncon­trolled reassess­ment gives the coun­ty more mon­ey with­out increas­ing the mill­age rate. By increas­ing your prop­er­ty assess­ment over and over, they can keep the mill­age rate the same and can pre­tend they didn’t increase tax­es, YET YOUR TAXES KEEP GOING UP.

Under HP 581 your assess­ment can only be increased a few per­cent­age points, what­ev­er the CPI was the pre­vi­ous year. HB 581 pro­tects the home­own­er. If the Coun­ty and cities OPT OUT, they can con­tin­ue to increase your prop­er­ty assess­ment to what­ev­er they think the fair val­ue is giv­ing them more mon­ey with­out the stig­ma of or hav­ing to EXPLAIN “a tax increase.”

Should you sell your prop­er­ty then the assess­ment will usu­al­ly increase to what­ev­er you sold it for, there­by giv­ing the coun­ty the addi­tion­al rev­enue at that time. The State Sen­ate wrote this bill to pro­tect the home­own­ers of Geor­gia. The House put the OPT OUT lan­guage in so coun­ties could undo it.

The FLOST por­tion of HB 581 is an addi­tion­al pro­tec­tion for the home­own­ers. For every dol­lar they col­lect in sales tax­es under FLOST they MUST REDUCE the mill­age rate. A def­i­nite win for the home­own­er. This will low­er your tax­es even more.

Please attend these meet­ings in force. Let the coun­ties and school board know how you feel.

Joene DePlancke Rueck­ert
Elli­jay, GA