With a runup in home values sparking higher property taxes for many Georgia homeowners, there is a groundswell among state lawmakers in this election year to provide relief.
Georgia’s Senate Finance Committee plans a hearing on Monday on a bill limiting increases in a home’s value, as assessed for property tax purposes, to 3% per year. The limit would last as long as the owner maintained a homestead exemption. Voters would have to approve the plan in a November referendum.
Meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Jon Burns of Newington proposes doubling the state’s homestead tax exemption, a measure likely to cut tax bills by nearly $100 million statewide.
It’s like these lawmakers don’t know what a mill rate is or something. Property assessments are just to determine that people with more real estate wealth pay more of the share of taxes. Remarkably, it’s a progressive tax.
I understand that people that have had their houses for decades in a gentrified area get fucked, but that’s a problem for a different solution. Most houses change hands often enough that you know you’re going to be in a high tax neighborhood or not.
Oh, no, they know. But no one swing-votes like middle class suburbanites, and no measure is so certain to gain their support as cheapening their tax burden at the expense of the financial health of the general polity.