As we enter the New Year, it is appropriate to remember the Roman deity Janus, god of passages and time. He is most often depicted as having two faces, one looking to the future and one to the past. The Romans named the month January in his honor.
If we own real estate, this is also a good time for us to look back and forward: back, to see if we have been paying more than our fair share of property tax, and forward to learn how to make sure we don’t pay one cent more than the law demands in the new year.
Here then are my recommendations for your year-end property tax review.
1. Know that unless your property is under an appeal from last year, you can’t revisit your 2013 property tax assessment. It’s over and done with. It is, however, your responsibility to take control of the process for 2014.
2. Also know that there is no relationship between the assessed value for property tax and the real market value. While we all want our homes worth as much as possible, you needn’t worry that a low assessment will hurt your selling price.
3. Beginning Jan. 1, 2014, owners may file a Taxpayers Return of Property. This form simply notifies the tax assessor of your opinion of the property's value on Jan. 1, 2014. The form is "Georgia PT-50R" and can be found on my website at Money99.com.
4. The form requires only your name, parcel ID, property address, and your estimate of value for the land and improvements. It should take less than ten minutes to fill out, even less if you have last year’s tax bill or can log on the county tax website to gather your account info.
5. Your estimate should be based on sales of comparable homes between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2013. If possible, find at least three that are: a) similar in age, style, and size to yours; b) have the same bedroom and bathroom count; and c) are within a mile of yours. Make sure your estimate of value for 2014 is lower than the assessed value for last year. Because this is simply your estimate, you don’t have to back it up with data. Filing the form simply tells the county you want its estimate of value re-examined before a valuation for 2014 is proposed later in the year.
6. Local real estate agents can help you locate these sales and provide data such as square footage so you can calculate a “dollars per square foot” average for your estimate. Alternatively, you can choose to hire a real estate appraiser to establish a value, but that usually costs several hundred dollars.
7. If you purchased the property in 2013, you are required to file a return. Include a copy of the HUD-1 settlement statement to establish value for 2014. Georgia law now requires counties to accept the purchase price from the previous year as the value for the following tax year.
8. Your completed Georgia Form PT-50R should be mailed or hand delivered to the local Board of Tax Assessors by April 1, 2014. Some counties allow you to file your form online. However, the safest method is to hand it to the assessor and get a receipt.
We’ll examine each of these steps in more detail as we move into the new year, but the bottom line is: You can save significant money by making sure the county is not overcharging you for your property taxes.
On my website at Money99.com, you can download my twelve page Special Report titled "How To Lower Your Property Tax In Georgia." In the report, we look at the new Georgia laws surrounding property taxation and how they can benefit owners. It also contains current contact information for the Board of Tax Assessors in every county in Georgia.
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