Politifact rates Brookhaven’s claim that city residents there pay less property taxes than equivalently valued properties in unincorporated DeKalb as “half true.”
Brookhaven sent this mailer to taxpayers stating that owning a home in Brookhaven saves residents several hundred dollars a year in property taxes compared to owning a home in unincorporated DeKalb:
But Politifact found that Brookhaven didn’t take debt and stormwater charges into account, and that the city computed its examples with a dated estimate for the homestead option sales tax credit. Politifact says the corrected figures would actually reduce the relative savings to less than $100 a year for most homes.
I’ve been trying to convey accurate information to property taxpayers for several years, including contrasts between city and county taxes, often using visuals like Brookhaven did. In that time I’ve learned that it can be very tricky to make apples-to-apples comparisons between incorporated and unincorporated tax bills. I don’t get DeKalb’s digest from DeKalb—I get Decatur’s digest from DeKalb--so it’s challenging to pull properties from DeKalb’s website with the exact same value, equivalent exemptions, and identical attributes for determining fee assessments to draw comparisons with equivalent city parcels. DeKalb has shared a property tax calculator spreadsheet with us, and we have our own calculators as well, but that doesn’t always solve every question about potential tax liability.
Politifact’s headline says Brookhaven’s claims are “exaggerated.” Apparently so, but based on my experience, this looks like an honest mistake.
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