Homeowners facing local property tax hikes – such as in Bulloch County and Statesboro – will receive substantial relief from Georgia’s special one-time 2023 state-funded higher homestead exemption, but only if those homeowners already received a homestead exemption in past years or applied for one by last April 1.

For that matter, people who live in their own homes in cities and counties that are not increasing property taxes this year will also catch a break from the state-funded program, called the 2023 Homestead Tax Relief Grant, or HTRG. By funding an $18,000 added one-time exemption from a home’s assessed value, the state grant to local governments in effect multiplies the $2,000 standard homestead exemption by a factor of 10.

But local tax officials know that homeowners here are especially interested since the county Board of Commissioners, the Board of Education and Statesboro City Council all raised property tax millage rates after near-record inflation in assessed property values.

“People are going to be real happy about it,” said Bulloch County Tax Commissioner Leslie Akins. “Well, let’s put it this way, the ones who have applied for homestead over the years are going to be real happy about it; the ones who never have are probably going to be very unhappy when they hear their friends getting it.”

Exempts $50K of market value

Because Georgia assesses homes for taxes at just 40% of their appraised fair market value, the standard annual $2,000 exemption in effect excludes $5,000 of a home’s fair market value from taxation. So, the extra $18,000 exemption from assessed value amounts to a $45,000 exemption from fair market value, and brings this year’s total, basic homestead exemption to $50,000 worth of fair market value, provided that the owner-occupied home had the standard exemption or another exemption in place or applied for by April 1, 2023.

As the county’s elected tax commissioner, Akins neither sets tax rates nor determines property values. The aforementioned elected boards set the millage rates, and the separate, appointed Bulloch County Board of Tax Assessors and their appraisers determine the values each year based on the prior year’s sales.

But the tax commissioner is responsible for collecting the county’s property taxes. This year she is also expected to submit certain information to the Georgia Department of Revenue that will be used to determine how much state funding cities and counties receive to make up for revenue they won’t be able to collect locally because of the added exemption.

House Bill 18, the supplemental appropriations bill that Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law March 13, earmarked $950 million left from last fiscal year’s state budget to the Department of Revenue for this purpose.

For their counties to be eligible for the grant, tax commissioners are also required to make sure that certain information appears on the tax bills.

“It’s going to actually show as a line-item credit on the bills,” Akins said, “and then there is a state mandate that has to be on all of the printed bills that basically says, you know, that the HTRG tax credit shown on your bill is a result of the governor and the General Assembly passing this.”

The credit will be “automatically applied for anybody who has the homestead exemption,” Akins said.

But that is the catch for 2023. If you don’t already have a homestead exemption, you cannot sign up now to receive one this year, and so you will not receive the added benefit of the HTRG, according to local taxing officials.

Sign up for 2024?

Homeowners who live in their homes can, however, sign up for a regular homestead exemption next year and hope that the governor and Legislature may, with continued surpluses in state revenue, repeat the “one-time” HTRG.

The place to sign up for the basic homestead exemption, and for a few other exemptions that are available to homeowners who meet certain requirements, is the Bulloch County Board of Tax Assessors Office if your home is in Bulloch, or the assessors’ office in your home county. Note, again, that the deadline to sign up for a new exemption is April 1 of each year.

Residents who weren’t signed up for the traditional $2,000 exemption and didn’t know to sign up by the deadline for the more generous exemption were not alone. Although Kemp had talked about it and the Legislature passed it, he only made it law as part of the spending bill two weeks before the exemption application deadline, and local tax officials didn’t receive official information until later.

“We didn’t really even know about it until, I think, late April or early May,” said Robert Fisher, deputy chief appraiser over real property for the Bulloch County Assessors. “That’s when we first understood what was going on with this.”

But to be clear, anyone who received the basic exemption, or a higher exemption such as the $4,000 one for individuals age 65 and over, should automatically receive the added HTRG exemption.

“Once you apply for an exemption, it stays on your property as long as you live there,” Fisher said. “So once you sell your property or transfer the ownership, that’s what removes the exemption, or if you claim it somewhere else.”

As of this year, 8,494 properties in Bulloch County are signed up for exemptions and so should receive the added benefit. About 4,900 more properties that probably qualify – based on tax bills going to the homes’ addresses – do not receive exemptions, he said.

What’s it worth?

The tax appraisers now know how much the HTRG should be worth to homeowners in various zones of Bulloch County and its municipalities. These calculations factor in the new, 2023 millage rates of 12.85 mills set by the Bulloch County commissioners, 8.478 mills set by the Board of Education, and 8.125 mills set by Statesboro City Council, since exemptions apply to city as well as county taxes.

The HTRG will save homestead owners within Statesboro a combined $530.15; it will save Brooklet homeowners a total of $492 and Portal homeowners $506, based on those cities’ proposed millage rates and the county and school adopted rates, Fisher reported.

In the county unincorporated area outside of the five-mile Statesboro fire service district, the HTRG is worth $383 savings, which will be the same for homeowners in Register. Register has a town millage but will not receive the credit because the town was not levying a property tax in 2004, when a state law underlying the credit was enacted, he explained.

In the county’s five-mile district served by the Statesboro Fire Department, the savings will be $432, Fisher said.

In a sense, these are maximum amounts. Anyone who was signed up for an exemption on a home with a market value less than $50,000 (assessed value under $20,000) would have no tax to pay this year.

“I would definitely encourage anyone who does not have a homestead exemption currently to come in and apply for it anyway, because this could always come back in the future, but there’s no guarantee on that,” Fisher said.

But also to be clear, the exemption does not apply to rented homes and does nothing to offset the effects on local tax increases on commercial and industrial properties or farm and forest land.

Special homestead exemptions for seniors, disabled veterans and surviving spouses of U.S. service members who died as a result of war are also available through the tax assessors’ office. For more information, visit www.qpublic.net/ga/bulloch and click on “Exemptions” in the menu bar. The time to apply for new exemptions is between Jan. 1 and April 1 of each year.