GAINESVILLE - Hall County Commissioners called a meeting at the Mulberry Creek Community Center near Flowery Branch with their tax people Wednesday morning and the prime topic was what revenues the cities, the county, and the school systems could expect in a dire economic year.
Tax assessors, a tax commissioner's representative, and interim Finance Director Lisa Johnsa told city and county officials, with only one exception, that they could expect plunging tax digest values this year because of recession foreclosures and a new state law that's expected to cause more tax appeals.
Senate Bill 346 extends the tax return deadline 30 days, exemptions may be filed year around and exemptions filed April 1st don't apply to the current tax year.
Assistant Chief Tax Appraiser Don Elrod estimated up to 18 percent of the county's 75,500 real property parcels, 5,400 mobile homes and 14,500 personal property accounts might appeal, with 60 percent of them resolved by the appraisal staff within 200 days. Forty percent might go to the Board of Equalization with one percent going to Superior Court for resolution.
Elrod told officials it would be difficult to gauge how much value would be lost to appeals. The Assessors Office would provide its first loss estimate when it presents the preliminary digest May 2nd.
Johnsa said the message was hope for the best but expect the worst based on the estimates.
"I think that would be a good summation in terms of what we might see with the decrease in digest values," Johnsa said. "I think we can certainly expect some significant declines in our digest but we want to stress communication and open dialogue between all the entities."
Never the less, net taxable projections show Hall County's digest at
Thursday
October 17th, 2024
10:35PM
