Georgia tax news roundup

Last night, Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Valerie Edwards reported that “A Senate proposal to revise how property taxes are assessed was withdrawn pending February revenue numbers.” (See this “Lawmakers” video about one-quarter of the way through). The broadcast did not specify whether the bill withdrawn was SB 346 or another property tax measure (although I don’t know of any other property tax bills in the Senate right now). I called the Secretary of the Senate’s office to confirm, but they said that SB 346 was still listed in their paperwork as “in committee.” If the GPB report is true, this would be a surprising reversal from state legislators.

In other news, today’s AJC raises concerns that metro-Atlanta property assessors have overvalued homes in the region.

This morning, WSB’s Clark Howard has written up several tips on appealing your property assessment. As a reminder, property appeals in Decatur are handled by DeKalb County and must be filed with them by March 1.

Lastly, new efforts underway in the Georgia General Assembly may lead to higher occupational tax collections. In an attempt to increase plummeting sales tax revenues, state legislators are moving toward requiring the state Department of Revenue to share sales tax certificate information with local jurisdictions in exchange for local information about which businesses have licenses. The idea is that the information sharing would lead to detection of businesses that are not paying their sales taxes or occupational sales taxes.