Looking to help homeowners, senators favor their proposal over speaker’s plan

State senators on their chamber’s Finance Committee took a look at Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns’ proposal to double the state’s homestead exemption on property taxes and decided they like their own idea better.

They took another tax measure and turned it into Senate Bill 349, which would cap how much home assessments can go up each year at 3%. The senators determined that Burns’ proposal, which would raise the state homestead exemption from $2,000 to $4,000, wouldn’t do enough to help ease the tax load on homeowners because it would apply to taxpayers in only one-third of Georgia’s counties. The others already have homestead exemptions are higher than the standard state exemption. “I think we need to do more than this,” Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome. “Basically, (people in) two-thirds of counties don’t get a dollar of tax relief.”

A homeowner’s property tax bill is mostly two elements: the tax rate and the assessed value of the property.

School districts, cities and counties have watched their revenue surge without taking the unpopular step of raising tax rates because the assessed values of homes and businesses in some areas of the state have risen sharply.

A cap on assessments could mean local governments and school districts would have to raise tax rates, but some lawmakers say that would make the process more transparent to homeowners who don’t understand how their properties grew so much in value.

Burns’ proposal — aimed at lowering taxable value of a home — remains on hold.

House Speaker Jon Burns