The Forsyth County elections board will review the qualifications of a candidate for the Board of Commissioners after questions arose over two homestead tax exemptions, including one outside the district he would represent.
The county Board of Registrations and Elections will examine Brant Meadows' qualifications to run as the commissioner for District 1 on June 17.
An anonymous tip came in to the elections board that Meadows had two homestead exemptions, one for a house in District 1 and one for a house outside of it. It is a misdemeanor to intentionally have two exemptions, which can be applied only at a primary residence.
Meadows said he did not know he had two exemptions until he got a call last week. He and his wife lived in the house outside the district in the early 1990s. They turned it into a rental home after buying a house in District 1 in 2003. Meadows showed The Atlanta Journal-Constitution a rental agreement with a tenant for the home outside the district.
County records for the first exemption application show it is unsigned and is filled out in a handwriting that does not look like Meadows' or his wife's.
"I don't recall filing that," he said of it.
Chief Tax Appraiser Mary Kirkpatrick said county workers 17 years ago obviously failed to get a properly completed exemption application, and it is impossible to tell who turned it in.
Meadows went Monday to the tax assessor's office and paid $1,700 in exemptions that he had received for the first house since moving from it.
He said that when he qualified to run for the office recently, he asked the tax commissioner's office to review his tax records and got a clean bill.
Kirkpatrick said workers may have missed the double exemption because Meadows' wife's name is listed first on the deed for the first house.
She said County Attorney Ken Jarrard will review the two exemptions for further action.
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