Georgia’s HB581: A Property Tax Reform with Controversial Opt-Out Clause

The state of GA passed HB581 for a statewide homestead exemption. Throughout the state appraisals have increased dramatically over the last several years. Every 3 years your entire county has to be reappraised. The appraisers have zero to do with your county's tax structure. The county commissioner gets the appraisals of the county for the tax digest. The tax digest gives the counties, cities, and school boards the property values of the counties and they set the millage rate. Once they set the millage rate they send it to the tax collector, the tax commissioner and you get the tax bill. By adjusting the millage rate the agency is able to bring the money in to operate the county. But because the property appraisal is so high that the roll back of the millage rate still causes the property tax to increase. Lawmakers received so much pressure and they passed HB581. It puts a cap on your assessment to coincide with the CPI. The GA House of Representatives would not pass without an opt-out. The Senate wanted to cap the assessments. The lobbyist (GMA for the cities and the ACCG for the counties and GSBA for the schools) pressured the GA state house to put in an opt-out clause. There is a reason they want an opt-out clause. So when it got passed and put on the ballot they didn’t care if the vote was 70%.
The claim that the county agencies have is that people didn’t understand it. Why didn’t these organizations campaign and fight this to the public to get you to vote no? Why didn’t the county commissioner come out to vote NO. they will come out to get the public to vote yes on a tax increase. Or a very strong campaign asking you not to vote for something. But for this it was total silence. They didn’t have too. They were told to not worry about it, the opt-out was the plan all along. They would get the talking points to give to the public.
HB581 and the cap. School boards are moving to opt out. This will no longer shelter the blame in raising your taxes. School systems are not able to participate in FLOST, that is true. But the revenue will not change unless they increase millage rate.
If you think that HB581 will hurt the children then you should immediately get rid of your state house and senator for letting it go through. IF you don’t think it will help with property tax. Ask them why they put it on the ballot if you think it is that bad. It is not true.
Scare tactics fuel opt-out argument. Increasing property assessment will not exceed the inflation rate. What about watching what you spend? They want you to believe that they will have to cut services.
Because it is a constitutional amendment any changes would have to have the public vote.
All these associations had the opportunity to push back on the law and they didn’t. The counties, cities and school boards are beholden to the associations and not the people. These associations are a racket and need to be broken up.
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