Metro Atlanta homeowners who successfully appeal their home’s taxable value may be in for a surprise.
Relief granted by their county assessor’s office might not be valid for long.
Homeowners, in order to protect a lowered tax value for several years, may need to take the dispute one step further — beyond the assessors office — to the county’s Board of Equalization. Those are appeals boards made up of residents chosen from the jury pool, and their decisions lock in lowered tax values for years.
Some Fulton County residents learned that the hard way this year. It could happen to tens of thousands more taxpayers who file appeals in years to come, if they don’t understand the rules. It can lead to higher tax bills, which could have been hundreds of dollars lower, had the paperwork been filled out differently.
Take the case of Joel and Kate Jackson.
Last year, the Jacksons appealed the county’s $427,200 value assigned to their two- story Inman Park home. In November, the Fulton assessors office offered to lower the value to $371,100, and Kate Jackson gladly signed off.
This month, their assessment notice announced that the value was back up to $427,200, raising their city and county tax bills by $800 to more than $6,000.
Now they’re kicking themselves. Had they taken their appeal to the equalization board, their value would have stayed the same until 2014, so long as they didn’t make major improvements to the house or file a return trying to change the value again.
“We didn’t know, and we definitely didn’t think it would be raised back up,” Kate Jackson said.
The issue of how far to take an assessment is especially pertinent, now that a state-mandated, three-year moratorium on raising tax assessments has expired. Georgia, metro Atlanta especially, as endured some of the steepest declines in home values in the nation during the housing bust. Home values continue to languish, although affluent areas are seeing some increases.
This year, out of about 331,000 assessments, Fulton raised values on 28,000. Of Gwinnett’s 271,000 assessments, it raised values on about 3,700. Cobb reports 1,400 increases out of about 230,000 assessments.
Assessments have a huge impact on how much residents pay for schools, police, fire protection, libraries, court systems and roadwork. County commissions, city councils and school boards set tax rates, but it’s chief appraisers and their staffs who set property values — the most critical, most disputed multiplier on tax bills.
“Naturally, if someone doesn’t agree, contact us, let us look at it,” Fulton Chief Appraiser David Fitzgibbon said.
A state law designed to cut down on the volume of appeals entitles taxpayers to a two-year freeze on values after settling a dispute. Fulton, Gwinnett, DeKalb and Cobb, however, interpret the law as saying that the freeze only applies if an appeal reaches the Board of Equalization
Vicki Lambert, director of local government services for the state Revenue Department, said the law is unclear. Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock, said he thinks appeals settled at the assessors office level are covered by the two-year freeze.
“I think this is just another classic example of the county doing everything in their power to take money from the taxpayers,” Rogers said.
If that’s how assessors offices are going to operate, taxpayer advocates and appeals experts say, homeowners should not cooperate with them.
“It only makes sense for the taxpayer to protect themselves,” said Stan Anderson, a licensed appraiser and president of Anderson Real Estate Services, “especially when values are rising.”
Fitzgibbon objects to the tactic. He said he doesn’t like the idea of freezing values in subsequent years, and he especially doesn’t like taking advantage of the system to keep them artificially low, if market data shows they’re going up. That affects the overall tax digest, he said, which could force governments to raise tax rates to compensate.
“Things change in the market, things change with your property,” Fitzgibbon said. “Why should we not go back to what’s right for everybody?”
Fitzgibbon said he’s considering adding language to appeal withdrawal forms telling taxpayers that they’re giving up their freeze rights. DeKalb Chief Appraiser Calvin Hicks said he’s agreeable to doing something similar.
Tax activist R.J. Morris, who disagrees with assessors’ reading of the law, said such openness would be a good compromise.
“They are lying by omission.”
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HOW TO FREEZE YOUR TAX VALUE
Under state law, county assessors offices can’t raise properties’tax values for two years after an appeal has been settled. However, they maintain that this only applies if an appeal reaches the Board of Equalization, one level above them in the appeals process. Here’s what you must do to make your appeal stick for two years.
• First ,indicate that you want to lodge your appeal with your county’s Board of Equalization and Superior Court when filing your initial appeal.
• Next, when the county Board of Assessors sends a decision, mark that you do not accept the proposed value and reiterate that you wish to take it further to the Board of Equalization.
•To qualify for the freeze, the value must be reviewed by the equalization board with a decision rendered from the assessor’s office.
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