Sandy Springs Council Adopts Property Tax Rate

The Sandy Springs City Council on Tuesday voted to adopt its millage rate for fiscal year 2015.

The council voted to hold its rate at 4.731 mills, the same rate Sandy Springs has had since its incorporation. 

However, an increase in property values mean some residents will see a higher tax bill.

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 trends 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 is required by law to re-determine the value of such property and adjust the assessment.

This is called a reassessment. There are two types of value increases made to a county tax digest: increases due to inflation and increases due to new or improved properties.

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.

So, due to the increase in property values, the millage rate for fiscal year 2015 reflects as 1.07 percent higher than the rollback millage rate computed by the Fulton County Tax Assessors Office. This required the city to hold three public hearings so residents can provide input on the millage rate.