A New Georgia Law Forces Local Governments to be Transparent About Your Property Taxes

Georgia homeowners will see new information on their property tax bills this year. A new state law requires local governments to be more honest about tax increases.

🏠 Why It Matters: You’ll finally know if your city or county is raising your taxes before you get hit with a bigger bill. The law makes it harder for local governments to sweep property tax increased due to tax hikes under the rug without your notice.

📋 What’s On Your Tax Notice Now: Your property tax assessment notice must show something called the “rollback rate” for each local government that taxes your property. The rollback rate is the tax rate that would bring in the same amount of money as last year, even if your property value went up.

If your city or county didn’t provide this number, your notice will show last year’s tax rate instead.

💰 The Warning You’ll See: If any local government raises taxes above the rollback rate, your tax bill will include this message in bold letters: “The adopted millage rate exceeds the estimated roll-back rate as stated in the annual notice of assessment that you previously received for this taxable year, which will result in an increase in the amount of property tax that you will owe.”

🏡 Homestead Exemption Alert: If your local government chose not to give you property tax relief from a 2024 law that Georgia residents overwhelmingly voted for, your bill must say so in bold. It will also give you a phone number to call and complain.

📅 The Big Picture: Local governments have been able to raise property taxes without clearly telling homeowners. When property values go up, tax bills can increase even if the tax rate stays the same. This law forces local officials to be upfront about whether they’re taking extra money from higher property values or actually raising tax rates. The changes take effect for all tax bills starting this year and run through 2029.

⚖️ Why We Have Laws: While complaining about new laws is a popular past time there are reasons for them. State lawmakers felt like local governments weren’t being transparent about tax hikes and passed a law to end the most common tactics your local government bodies often use to cloak, surgar coat, or outright keep information from you about the taxes you pay. Bad behavior leads to new laws to curb that behavior, even if the bad behavior is exhibited by government entities.