Homeowners and Taxes
Please see the published letter from Henry Tax Commissioner David Curry and quoting Chairman BJ Mathis, as published in the Henry Herald.
The following will appear in Citizen Newsletter #124.
The Homeowner's Tax Relief Grant (HTRG) got a lot of attention when counties learned the state would cut this “free money.” NO county official will acknowledge the reason. Gov. Perdue correctly said
the grant was intended to allow reductions in property taxes levied by local governments.THAT NEVER HAPPENED. Millage rates were not reduced and assessments were not reduced and taxes continued to rise. So, the money was simply used to allow Henry and other counties to maintain millage and tax rates, using the grant to offset their spending! Read this article from August 2008. And note that adoption of the Rollback Millage Rate in September 2008 did not reduce the tax rates, but simply did not increase them.
The pitch, false from the start and maintained in Curry's letter, was that the state was paying part of your property taxes.
So, what about Henry taxpayers seeing an “increase” in property taxes? The key is invalid property assessments. The Citizen knows people who have realized significant reductions in assessed property values, sought by filing the Return Of Real Property and subsequently filing an appeal when the assessors released tax bills.
Initially, many filers got reductions in assessed values just filing from the Return of Real Property. It was one-half (7%) of the requested reduction (15%) for people contacted by The Citizen. Then, after filing the subsequent appeal, some people got as much as 18% reduction in assessed property value.
How can this be? Simple: The County is not prepared to tell the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth. Property values have fallen dramatically, residential and commercial. But the county insists on targeting locations and types of property for increase or decrease. It is about maintaining a sustainable level of tax revenues. It is NOT about fair market values or valid assessments.
Why might some people get a realistic assessment of property value while others will not? The County is not prepared to defend against (and lose!) all the law suits that would be filed. Other metro-Atlanta counties already went down this road, and citizens won!
There is a lesson here. The property tax regiment followed by Henry County is a rigged game. Public announcements about loss of state grants are a sham. When property is assessed factually and fairly according to actual fair market values, county revenues will fall like a rock. In order to keep the gravy train rolling along, people with too little knowledge – and too much faith in hollow words – will be over-taxed again!
The real shame is that citizens must remain vigilant and protect themselves against the charlatans we have elected.
Comments
The BOC should just be honest and quie bragging about not raising the millage rate, but instead forcing the Tax Assessor to do their dirty work via false assessment values to pay for their run away spending.
Posted by: BR | August 2, 2009 02:10 PM