Bartow Commissioner Seeks To Hold Tax Rate Steady

CARTERSVILLE, GA --Bartow County's sole commissioner has proposed no change to the county's millage rates for 2016.

Steve Taylor is proposing to keep the millage rate for incorporated areas at 10.30 and 9.01 for unincorporated portions of the county, the same figures adopted in 2015.

However, Georgia law requires the county to advertise its plans as a tax increase since the state "measures change not against the actual prior-year millage rate, but rather against the rollback rate," the county said.

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Here's how this works in Georgia. Each year, the board of tax assessors is 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 show there has been an increase in the fair market value of any specific property, the board of tax assessors is required by law to re-determine the value of such property and adjust the assessment.

This 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.

Since the county's millage rate is slated to be more than the rollback rate, it must advertise its proposal as a tax increase.

Concerned citizens are invited to come out and speak on the proposal at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. July 28 and at 10 a.m. Aug. 4 at the Commissioner's Public Meeting/Conference Room, which is at 135 West Cherokee Avenue in Cartersville.

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