Georgia Property Taxes Increase Due to Loss of The Homeowners Tax Relief Grant!

Hey Peachtree City have you taken the opportunity to open your tax bill yet!  Well if you haven’t you are probably one of those homeowners that will be filing late as typically taxes in Fayette County are due on November 15th.  By the way, if you plan on writing off those taxes for 2009, I hope that you get them paid before December 31st.

However, this is not a public service announcement for Fayette county to get folks to pay their taxes on time so our electorate can pay those tax anticipation notes coming due.  Quite the contrary.  I simply wanted to inform folks that across the board statewide we will all see increases on our tax bills.  Why you say?  It is because Georgians will no longer be able to benefit from the State’s Homeowners Tax Relief Grant that previously funded a tax credit on homesteaded properties.  It seems that the State’s revenue woes during this recession has left the coffers a tad bit short forcing the elimination of funding for at least the next couple of years. 

If you remember back in 1999, the governor and general assembly appropriated this grant as a way to provide some tax relief to homeowners in the form of a tax credit.  New legislation passed this year (House Bill 143) stipulated that the grant would be made available again in the future if state revenues grew a total of 3% plus the rate of inflation.    

The bottom line is that I feel we should all be properly informed of any increase to our taxes.  Further, I wanted to emphasize that this is not a County increase but a hike promulgated by the State of Georgia.  Many homeowners are already feeling the pinch from our ailing economy on their paychecks and now the onset of additional taxes.  Need I even mention the fact that many homeowners are also having to deal with declining home values. 

So where do we go to get some relief?  Well the Fayette County Commissioners wanted to let all their constituents know that they had nothing to do with increasing taxes.  In fact, they issued a public statement on their website stating that the portion of the tax bill that relates to their responsibilities totals less than 25% of your total tax bill.  Further, if you live in a municipality that issued a city tax, that percentage is even less with a large majority of taxes going to Fayette County schools. 

Hmmm…maybe a call to your state representative may shed some light on this issues. 

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