Lawmakers propose property tax reform

By D.L. Bennett

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Any time a piece of property sells, county assessors would be prohibited from setting a tax value that is higher than the sale price, under a property tax reform proposal that legislators will begin debating next month.

Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) said the reform package coming from the Senate study committee he chairs will include that provision among a lengthy list of changes, including:

• Completely overhauling the appeals system.

• Scrapping property tax returns -- the document homeowners file early in the year if they wish to contest their tax appraisal -- and enabling owners to challenge their valuation every year. Currently, if your tax value doesn't change, and you didn't file a return, you have no right to appeal.

• Allowing a property owner's value to stand in arbitration if the county doesn't respond within 45 days.

Rogers said all the proposals will be crafted into legislation that will go before his study committee the first week of January, just before the General Assembly convenes. The proposals fall short of his goal of scrapping the property tax system altogether. There's not enough support for such radical change. Still, he said the momentum for reform is building.

"The system is very difficult to defend," Rogers said.

Sometimes assessors do use sales as tax values, especially when values are rising.

However, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found during an eight-month review of sales values and tax appraisals in Cobb, Clayton, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties that assessors routinely ignore sales when they fall below tax appraisals. The study found ZIP codes all over metro Atlanta where median sales fell more than 30 percent but median tax appraisals dipped between 5 percent and 10 percent.

The study found assessors cut $4.2 billion in taxable value last year through adjustments to more than 450,000 parcels. However, the newspaper found that if tax appraisals had been lowered as much as sales dictated, the loss would have been nearly $25 billion.

The property tax system was under assault Tuesday as Rogers' committee held its second meeting at the state Capitol. The session drew chief appraisers from Cobb and Gwinnett, tax consultants, tax lawyers, taxpayers and local government officials. Everyone who testified agreed the system must be reformed.

The session drew testimony from two local government officials from far-flung regions of the state, Gilmer County in the Georgia mountains and Glynn County on the Georgia coast. Both said assessments in their counties are controversial and problematic.

Cap Fendig, former Glynn commission chairman, said his county's assessments haven't dropped at nearly the pace of property values, which have fallen off dramatically as the market for high-dollar second and third homes has tanked.

"The property tax system should be eliminated," Fendig said. He complained that it is "rife with errors" and "subject to political manipulation."

Mark Chastain, Gilmer's chair, proposed a new property tax structure in which properties are valued based on a uniform formula that takes into account issues such as zoning, lot size and use, rather than a system that's supposed to be based on setting tax values to match the market. He said such a task is impossible.

"Property tax is the only tax I know of where the government assumes the burden of proof and goes out and determines what your property is worth," Chastain said. "It's easy to see the inequities. By definition, mass appraisal is inaccurate. It's very subjective."