SWGA Politics

A Libertarian Look at the Property Tax Bill, SB 346

written by Brad Forschner

I’ve read through the new 47 page proposal to completely overhaul the property tax system. (Who else could read 50 pages of property tax law in less than a week and have a clue what it meant?) While much playing up to the media was done in the previous 12 months to hype this bill, I’ve found plenty of reasons to outright oppose it, as well as complete disappointment in our elected officials to actually address the inequalities, unfairness, and lack of uniformity within the digests. There are a few items which I could support fully, but with the bad portions in the bill, I’d rather keep the current system.

The full bill may be read here.

Below I’ve completely summarized and detailed all the changes this bill proposes as well as stating my support or opposition for such changes and reasoning why.

1. Annual assessment notices for all property owners.
Support This is a change I can wholeheartedly support. This gives each homeowner fair notice, of the value the county is placing on the property without playing any games with forms and deadlines to file. Also the service of the notice is the standard by mail or handing to anyone at the property. This leaves open the fact there is no proof any notice was ever sent or delivered.

2. Creates a standard state form for the annual notices.
Support/Negotiate While this form adds a statement that any and all sales data used in the determination of of the county’s opinion of value are available at the county, it does not appear to show any of the calculations or how the comparable properties values are adjusted to arrive at the county’s opinion of value. Also, there currently are no requirements for the county to explain their opinion or show the math of how that opinion was arrived at.

3. Extends the deadline to appeal the assessment from 30 days from the date of notice, to one year.
Support/Negotiate While I feel the 30 day period is too short for property owners to adequately research their notice, one full year is too long of a period for the local taxing authorities to finalize the digest in a way to keep local funding stable. I would suggest a change to 90 days, or maybe 120 days. Change #5 will create rules for the dates of the notice mailings making the appeal deadline more predictable. Taxing authorities such as the ACCGA and the Municipal Association, and School Boards may oppose this entire bill over this single change. The taxing authorities have their solution to this issue through changes 14 and 15. IF Arbitration is chosen by the property owner, the deadline to file is also extended to one year from the date of notice (ref. 18)

4. Directs the Commissioner to create a uniform appeal form to be provided to property owners.
Support While the form has room for the property owner to state the reasoning and data for their appeal, the law explicitly states the property owner is not required to submit such data.

5. Directs the Commissioner to establish by rule and regulation the dates for the mailing of the annual assessment notice.
Support Currently there are no deadlines on how long the county has to notify you. Under the proposed change, Property owners will know by when they should have received their notice. Today is a guessing game to figure out when notices are sent, and likewise how long the property owner has to appeal based on the date of this notice.

6. Enables the formation of regional Boards of Equalization by intergovernmental agreements between the governing authorities of two or more counties.
Oppose/Negotiate While this seems to make available the cost savings by sharing with other counties the functions and roles of the boards of equalization, there is little intent visible in this change. There are no restrictions that the counties be neighboring. I can imagine this is to handle the issues that come from cities that cross county lines and the future options of multi-county building projects. This change is unnecessary and undermines the trust in the system. A property owner should be able to have full faith in the boards of equalization not only within his own county, but to trust also the BOE of other counties as well. I oppose this change because it needs to be further defined.

7. Requires members of the boards of equalization to take an oath in writing, signed, including the phrase ’so help me God,’ to faithfully execute their duties.
Oppose/Useless Aside from invoking God into the business of use of force to extort the funding of governments, this is not really a big deal. Swearing an oath to do one’s job is not uncommon, and there is hardly a purpose for needing such documents. I’m not convinced this change is really needed, particularly given the fact an appeal may be furthered beyond this board, by either party, and there is hardly a way to prove the board member failed in his duty, and of course there is no enforcement to even determine such an issue. This is a waste of ink, time, paper and energy, and I’m sure God will be proud.

8. Provides a mechanism to force Grand Juries to appoint members to the Boards of Equalization within 5 days upon the written request of a single taxpayer or the board of assessors.
Support. This ensures a Grand Jury cannot hold the process hostage or delay the process by withholding appointments or ignoring requests. This ensures the process may function in a timely manner in order to provide revenue to the local governments.

9. Grants the County Governing Authority a mysterious position with mysterious new power of oversight of the county’s boards of equalization.
OPPOSE, NO COMPROMISES There is no explanation for this position or it’s oversight authority, and is reason enough for the public to oppose the entire bill. This position does not have a title, and the BOE needs as much oversight as other juries across our state. Currently in our system, if either party is not satisfied with the decisions of the BOE on a case by case basis, they may appeal to superior court and be heard by a full jury. This is growing government and absolutely not needed. If anything the Board of Assessors needs oversight in their choices to take appeals to court to spend a few thousand over just a hundred in revenue. This makes no sense at this time.

10. Grants ‘group appeal’ to condos and tracts of land with common ownership or with common management.
Support/Useless Not a big deal, not sure why this wasn’t already in the law or was at least certainly implied. I see nothing in the law as it is now that ever prevented this type of appeal.

11. Forces automatic appeal to the Board of Equalization after the consideration of the appeal by the Board of Assessors, and creates a mechanism for the termination of the appeal.
Support Under today’s system, the boards of assessors toy with property owners by ‘throwing them a bone’ on the value by betting the property owner will not appeal. With this proposal, the board of assessors has the ability to directly negotiate a value with the contesting property owner, who must agree to a value in writing, in order to terminate the appeal to the board of equalization, otherwise, there is no question the appeal is moving beyond the BOA.

12. Forces the commissioner to adopt uniform standards and procedures, including but not limited to, those similar to those of courts of record, to be followed by the Boards of Equalization in determining appeals. Additionally these rules may be revised and updated periodically every 5 years or less as needed.
Support About time.

13 and 14. Changes how refunds are handled, allowing the government to keep the refund and apply to the next year’s tax bill in some situations. Also defers the additional taxes owed to the next year based on the same appeal decision deadline of Aug 1.
OPPOSE The proposed situation is appalling, to take initially and then after winning appeal, the property owner must provide the funding for an interest free loan to the government based on the date of the appeal decision. While I understand this is provided to ensure the availability of revenue to the governing authorities, it is disgusting to take what could be productive, needed, and most of all, RIGHTFUL, resources of the property owner. Under today’s current system this takes place because there is a long limit for the government to refund monies due after the appeal process, and I don’t believe extending it into new law is fair to the property owners at all. There is too much room for abuse with this set up. But, this kind of situation is necessary in order to allow year long deadlines on appeals and satisfy the needs of the governing authorities. This applies to any final decisions during the process be it arbitration, board of assessors, board of equalization or the superior court.

15. Requires a unanimous decision by the BOE to establish any value higher than that asserted by the property owner.
Support Wholeheartedly support this. Currently, only a majority decision by the BOE is needed to set any value above the homeowner’s declaration.

16. Clarifies how timed deadlines are determined, specifically days and provides for remedies of deadlines falling on holidays or weekends to be given the next business day treatment.
Support This should be standard in the law for everything.

17. In any county with more than $1 Million in commercial property, all commercial appeals will be heard by a licensed appraiser appointed by the tax commissioner in place of the Board of Equalization.
Oppose/No compromise Under our current system, commercial appealss are handled by the same board as residential appeals. I do understand commercial appeals are more complicated and may require a more experienced board of equalization, however, it would make better sense to allow the grand jury to create a commercial board of equalization rather than this proposal. Too much room for abuse, and does not address the core issues of fairness. This also removes the ability to determine the uniformity of assessments between commercial and residential strata within the taxing authorities jurisdictions by the majority of BOEs.

18. Extends the method of requesting arbitration to email and extends the deadline to request arbitration to one year from the notice of assessment.
See #3 The email situation is somewhat silly and over thought.

19. Defines ‘certified appraisal’ as being completed by a registered appraiser in the state of GA for the purposes of arbitration.
OPPOSE/No Compromise Registered appraisers are the least qualified and least experienced appraiser classification as designated by the Georgia Real Estate Appraisers Board. The value opinions of registered appraisers are not acceptable on their own for any loan purposes due to the lack of qualifications. Constant supervision must be given to any registered appraiser according to the GREAB by a licensed appraiser on every report and a registered appraiser must complete 2000 hours within 2 years of supervised work before they can become licensed. At a minimum, only appraisals by licensed or certified appraisers should be used in arbitration. This undercuts the experience and education of the appraisal industry.

20. Provides an appeal process from arbitration to ‘binding arbitration’ and termination of the process upon the failure of the property owner to meet required deadlines.
Oppose I have apposed the entire ‘arbitration’ path since enacted last year, as the existing appeals process should be sufficient to provide for uniformity. This portion only complicates things, although, if the property owner is willing to spend the money, the arbitration process can move along quicker than for the standard appeal process. How much is swift justice worth to you?

21. Places deadlines upon the board of assessors regarding the arbitration process.
Oppose see #20

22. Code section 48-5-299 does not apply to arbitration, or appeals to superior court from the BOE
researching

23. Provides for representing attorneys to be notified of all notices in the same time manner as the property owner in the arbitration process.
Oppose see #20

24. Provides a method through written mutual agreement between the board of assessors and property owner to waive the appeal from the board of equalization directly to superior court.
Oppose Why complicate a process? Leave the appeal in the BOE before tying up the superior courts. Would we favor a law to skip the lower courts to go directly to the state supreme court on appeals without giving the lower court the ability to address the issue?

25. Changes property returns to only returning the value of personal property rather than any property meaning personal and real property.
Support This portion of the change compliments the fact that all real property will be automatically sent notice of assessment.

26. Completely removes the return for real property.
Support See #25

27. Defines ‘local tax officials and staff’ as tax collectors and tax commissioners, all county appraisers and appraisal staff, all members of county boards of assessors and all members of the boards of equalization. Also requires ‘the department’ to provide training and continuing education to local tax officials and staff and make all such training to be online except for courses to be attended in person. Additionally all training must be available to taxpayers and their attorneys upon request and payment of a ‘reasonable instruction fee’ for the course materials as determined by the department.
OPPOSE/NO COMPROMISE There is no reason in which an online course developed by our own government regarding the proper implementation of the law should be be hidden from anyone in the public. This is a ridiculous proposal.

28. Clarifies what is considered a “fair market sale” and makes no difference if the previous owner of ‘comps’ is an individual or a bank as in foreclosures. Meaning, foreclosures, distressed sales, are considered actual sales for the purposes of determining assessments. Additionally, the sale of a property is the maximum allowable assessment for said property for the period of 12 months from the sale date.
Support This clarification has been needed since the Legislature enacted the law last year that county assessors must take foreclosures into account, but did not explain how. This also sets in stone the fact that a property should be assessed no more than it actually sold for within the previous 12 months.

29. Clarifies that only the existing zoning be used to determine the assessment and prohibits assessments based on future highest and best use.
Oppose/negotiate While there is some room for abuse and favoritism with this change, future zoning possibilities are completely hypothetical. According to terminology of appraisals, his would be better defined as stating the assessment must reflect the ‘current highest and best use’.

30. Prohibits the use of “current highest and best use’ as the terms for assessments and limits assessments only to current use.
Oppose/no compromise Every single property transaction is valued according to highest and best use for this is what fully determines a property’s worth at any given point. In order to maintain a fair and uniform standard property must be valued equally for its current value. This will breed growing inequalities throughout every single digest in the state. Every appraiser in the state will oppose this change.

31. Prohibits the use of the “view factor” or similar techniques by assessors as a factor.
researching.

32. Clarifies that inequalities in the digest caused by the moratorium on property assessment increases enacted last year will not penalize counties.
Oppose It was for these very inequalities in which I opposed the moratorium law passed last year. Now that the problem has been created, the state is trying to create a backdoor in which unfairness is okay. The moratorium should be repealed to rectify this situation.

33. Makes a provision that utility property assessments not provided before Aug 1 shall be valued at the previous years assessment.
Oppose/no compromise There should be a reasonable deadline by which these required reports are filed, and they should be subject to taxation just as every other property owner. This gives utilities the ability to delay reporting in order to only be taxed at last year’s reported values.

34. Governing authorities are required to establish by resolution or ordinance due dates for taxes and installment payments.
Support Providing a method for installment payments of taxes will always be helpful to property owners.

35. Governing authorities are authorized through resolutions may elect to receive payment of property taxes by any form of payment.
Support This could allow a property owner to pay property taxes in multiple ways such as check, cash, credit cards and could even offer a method of community service, or civil service without pay in exchange for property taxes owed. This change could be interesting!

36. Changes slightly the requirement of taxing authorities to publicly advertise proposed millage rate changes and the the requirement of such notices being submitted to the Department of Revenue with the digest. Includes specific language and requirements for the advertisements.
Support Transparency Rules!

37. Adds a provision that if the taxing authority does not comply with the advertising requirements in regards to the millage rate change, the commissioner may declare the increase null and void, and order the excess taxes refunded back to the taxpayer at the expense of the taxing authority.
Support By putting this revenue at risk, it ensures the taxing authorities cross their t’s and dot their i’s when it comes to following the intent of the law regarding the rollback rate and millage rate increases and to make it clear to property owners such increases above the rollback rate are tax increases.

Brad Forschner is a Libertarian area who specializes in property tax and SPLOST issues.