Rabun County Commisioners propose property tax increase

The Rabun County Board of Commissioners announced on Monday their intention to increase the 2018 property taxes — 11.60 percentage over the rollback millage rate.

Each year the board of tax assessors are required to review the assessed value for property tax purposes of taxable property in the county. When the trend of prices on properties that have recently sold in the county indicate there has been an increase in the fair market value of any specific property, the Board of tax assessors are required by law to re-determine the value of such property and adjust the assessment, which is called a “reassessment.”

When the total digest of taxable property is prepared, Georgia law requires that a rollback millage rate must be computed that will produce the same total revenue on the current year’s digest that last year’s millage rate would have produced had no reassessments occurred.

The budget tentatively adopted by the Rabun County BoC requires that a millage rate higher than the rollback millage rate, therefore, before the Rabun County BoC may finalize the tentative budget and set a final millage rate.

Georgia law requires three public hearings to be held to allow the public an opportunity to express their opinions on the increase.

All concerned citizens are invited to the public hearings on this tax increase to be held at the Rabun County Courthouse, 25 Courthouse Square on July 19 at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. as well as July 26 at 6 p.m.