Gwinnett County Tax Commissioner Katherine Meyer announced that property tax bills for 2009 have been mailed. Payment installment dates are October 15 and November 15.
These are temporary bills. The temporary tax bills were required because a final millage rate had not been set by the County Board of Commissioners. Property owners must pay their temporary tax bills in full by November 15 to avoid interest and penalty charges. Once the final millage rate has been set, a re-billing may occur. Any difference in the temporary and the final millage rate may result in additional charges or refunds to property owners.
Homeowners across Georgia may see in an increase in their 2009 tax bills unrelated to the County millage rate. Since 1999, the Georgia General Assembly and the Governor have provided a credit on property tax bills called the Homeowners Tax Relief Grant (HTRG). In recent years, that credit resulted in an $84 - $272 reduction to your property tax bill. Due to financial strains on the state budget, the Georgia General Assembly and the Governor did not fund this credit for 2009 property tax bills. While the HTRG credit may some day be reinstated by the General Assembly, it is not expected to be considered again until state revenues increase significantly. As a result, your tax bill may increase accordingly.
You can determine the exact amount you saved in 2008 by locating the 'Tax Relief Credit' amount displayed on your 2008 tax bill. If your taxes are paid from an escrow account through your mortgage lender, you may want to notify them so the escrow payment amount can be adjusted.
In some cases, the fair market value of your property may have changed which impacted your assessment and the amount you owe.
“At a time when everyone is carefully watching their spending, an increase in property taxes is not good news,” said Katherine Meyer, Gwinnett Tax Commissioner. “Since much of that increase is coming from an action that was taken at the state level, not the county, we want people to have the facts.”
For more information on the 2009 temporary tax bills and the HTRG credit, visit the Tax Commissioner’s website at www.GwinnettTaxCommissioner.com. Follow the link to the Property Tax page.
---
Community News You Can Use
Follow us on Twitter: @gafrontpage
www.FayetteFrontPage.com
www.GeorgiaFrontPage.com
www.PoliticalPotluck.com
www.ArtsAcrossGeorgia.com
---
Showing posts with label tax. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tax. Show all posts
Friday, August 28, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
Commission Chairman Charles Bannister re: Property Tax Increase
Welcome, as most of you already know, I’m Gwinnett Commission Chairman Charles Bannister. I have held elected office in this county for 34 years and every year I’ve served, I‘ve done so as a conservative Republican. During all of those years, I’ve voted only once for a tax increase- and that was for a tobacco tax. From the day I took office as commission chairman, I have stressed efficiency with my fellow commissioners and county staff.
I say all of this because the financial situation facing Gwinnett County at this time is the most difficult I have ever seen. When I proposed a property tax increase for Gwinnett County, I did so only because I did not believe the other options were in the best interest of Gwinnett’s citizens.
However, we have heard the message sent to us by the citizens and property owners of Gwinnett County and I plan to postpone the vote to set the millage rate. We will conduct our advertised millage public hearing next Tuesday at 10:30am, but it is my intention to table the millage vote scheduled to take place at 2:00pm on June 2.
Much of the concern we’ve heard from the public about the proposed millage increase was generated by misinformation spread about alleged county plans to take over city police departments and the alleged disproportionate taxation of city businesses and residents. None of this information is true. However, we also heard from our citizens about the genuine hardship this increase may cause for some of the citizens of Gwinnett County.
What we will do now is take another look at our current budget and future budgets to see where we can make additional cuts. These cuts will be as aggressive as possible and could impact some of our more protected interests, including financial policies that support our AAA bond rating.
I want to emphasize – our board has already been through this exercise. We have made significant cuts and we have also implemented significant increases to other revenues – all to the tune of $40 million or about 7.8% of our already lean general fund.
To find the additional money, we will have to take another hard look at our biggest operating expenses – courts, parks, libraries and personnel costs. Any additional cuts we make will have significant visible and tangible impacts on county services. Because of the serious consequences further cuts will bear, I am calling on all of our county leadership – civic and elected – to come together to help solve this crisis. Now is the time to put this community ahead of personality, politics, turf, and personal ambition.
I have no firm details at this time to share about additional cuts or how or when we’ll get all county leadership to the table. We are going back to work on our budget immediately and I will be in contact with the other leaders in the coming hours and days.
---
Community News You Can Use
Follow us on Twitter: @gafrontpage
www.FayetteFrontPage.com
www.GeorgiaFrontPage.com
www.PoliticalPotluck.com
www.ArtsAcrossGeorgia.com
---
I say all of this because the financial situation facing Gwinnett County at this time is the most difficult I have ever seen. When I proposed a property tax increase for Gwinnett County, I did so only because I did not believe the other options were in the best interest of Gwinnett’s citizens.
However, we have heard the message sent to us by the citizens and property owners of Gwinnett County and I plan to postpone the vote to set the millage rate. We will conduct our advertised millage public hearing next Tuesday at 10:30am, but it is my intention to table the millage vote scheduled to take place at 2:00pm on June 2.
Much of the concern we’ve heard from the public about the proposed millage increase was generated by misinformation spread about alleged county plans to take over city police departments and the alleged disproportionate taxation of city businesses and residents. None of this information is true. However, we also heard from our citizens about the genuine hardship this increase may cause for some of the citizens of Gwinnett County.
What we will do now is take another look at our current budget and future budgets to see where we can make additional cuts. These cuts will be as aggressive as possible and could impact some of our more protected interests, including financial policies that support our AAA bond rating.
I want to emphasize – our board has already been through this exercise. We have made significant cuts and we have also implemented significant increases to other revenues – all to the tune of $40 million or about 7.8% of our already lean general fund.
To find the additional money, we will have to take another hard look at our biggest operating expenses – courts, parks, libraries and personnel costs. Any additional cuts we make will have significant visible and tangible impacts on county services. Because of the serious consequences further cuts will bear, I am calling on all of our county leadership – civic and elected – to come together to help solve this crisis. Now is the time to put this community ahead of personality, politics, turf, and personal ambition.
I have no firm details at this time to share about additional cuts or how or when we’ll get all county leadership to the table. We are going back to work on our budget immediately and I will be in contact with the other leaders in the coming hours and days.
---
Community News You Can Use
Follow us on Twitter: @gafrontpage
www.FayetteFrontPage.com
www.GeorgiaFrontPage.com
www.PoliticalPotluck.com
www.ArtsAcrossGeorgia.com
---
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Commission to Hold Public Hearings on Proposed Tax Increase
The Gwinnett County Commission today announced plans to conduct a series of public hearings on a proposed increase in the county’s property taxes.
The public hearings will be held at 4:30 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. on May 26 and at 10:30 a.m. on June 2 in the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center (GJAC) at 75 Langley Drive in Lawrenceville. Citizens are also encouraged to attend public information forums that will be conducted one hour before each hearing. The commission is expected to act on the proposal following the final public hearing on June 2.
The commission’s consideration of the tax increase follows its adoption earlier this year of a $1.7 billion 2009 budget that reflected needed increased staffing in the county’s police, fire and emergency services departments, efficiency in government service and long-term financial stability. Over the past 12 years, the Board of Commissioners has rolled back property taxes by a total of 3.98 mills. The rollback was possible in part because the county’s rapid growth generated sufficient tax revenues to cover the cost of expanding service needs. In recent years, however, the county’s growth rate has begun to slow.
“We are undergoing a natural and unavoidable transition from high growth to maturity, and that change holds implications both for the services we provide and the way we pay for them,” said County Administrator Jock Connell. “We have been projecting for several years that 2009 would be the year when service demands would exceed revenues produced by natural growth in our tax digest. I should add that the current economic situation compounds our challenges, but it is not a primary cause.”
The County’s situation is complicated by the fact that the Service Delivery Strategy negotiations with Gwinnett County’s 15 municipalities will require the county to dramatically alter its millage rate and accounting structures. The new rate structure will add four new service districts in order to segregate funding for municipal and unincorporated EMS, fire and police services. The 2009 tax structure will decrease the general fund levy, but an increase in the recreation levy, coupled with the new funds, will result in a 2.87 – 3.31 mill increase depending on where in the county a property is located.
“We recognize that the increase is significant and that it comes at a difficult time economically,” said Connell. “But we would also point out that even with this proposed increase, the owner of an average $200,000 home in Gwinnett County would be paying about $2.50 a day for the full array of county government services, including police, fire and EMS protection; transportation; parks and recreation; libraries; the sheriff’s department and county courts; and health and human services.”
The millage increase to be decided on June 2 applies only to the county government’s portion of the property tax bill, which is slightly less than one-third of the total bill. The remaining two-thirds of the bill that funds Gwinnett County Public Schools will be unaffected by the proposed increase.
At each of the public hearings, Gwinnett County citizens will be given an opportunity to express their views about the proposed tax increase.
---
Community News You Can Use
Follow us on Twitter: @gafrontpage
www.FayetteFrontPage.com
www.GeorgiaFrontPage.com
www.PoliticalPotluck.com
www.ArtsAcrossGeorgia.com
---
The public hearings will be held at 4:30 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. on May 26 and at 10:30 a.m. on June 2 in the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center (GJAC) at 75 Langley Drive in Lawrenceville. Citizens are also encouraged to attend public information forums that will be conducted one hour before each hearing. The commission is expected to act on the proposal following the final public hearing on June 2.
The commission’s consideration of the tax increase follows its adoption earlier this year of a $1.7 billion 2009 budget that reflected needed increased staffing in the county’s police, fire and emergency services departments, efficiency in government service and long-term financial stability. Over the past 12 years, the Board of Commissioners has rolled back property taxes by a total of 3.98 mills. The rollback was possible in part because the county’s rapid growth generated sufficient tax revenues to cover the cost of expanding service needs. In recent years, however, the county’s growth rate has begun to slow.
“We are undergoing a natural and unavoidable transition from high growth to maturity, and that change holds implications both for the services we provide and the way we pay for them,” said County Administrator Jock Connell. “We have been projecting for several years that 2009 would be the year when service demands would exceed revenues produced by natural growth in our tax digest. I should add that the current economic situation compounds our challenges, but it is not a primary cause.”
The County’s situation is complicated by the fact that the Service Delivery Strategy negotiations with Gwinnett County’s 15 municipalities will require the county to dramatically alter its millage rate and accounting structures. The new rate structure will add four new service districts in order to segregate funding for municipal and unincorporated EMS, fire and police services. The 2009 tax structure will decrease the general fund levy, but an increase in the recreation levy, coupled with the new funds, will result in a 2.87 – 3.31 mill increase depending on where in the county a property is located.
“We recognize that the increase is significant and that it comes at a difficult time economically,” said Connell. “But we would also point out that even with this proposed increase, the owner of an average $200,000 home in Gwinnett County would be paying about $2.50 a day for the full array of county government services, including police, fire and EMS protection; transportation; parks and recreation; libraries; the sheriff’s department and county courts; and health and human services.”
The millage increase to be decided on June 2 applies only to the county government’s portion of the property tax bill, which is slightly less than one-third of the total bill. The remaining two-thirds of the bill that funds Gwinnett County Public Schools will be unaffected by the proposed increase.
At each of the public hearings, Gwinnett County citizens will be given an opportunity to express their views about the proposed tax increase.
---
Community News You Can Use
Follow us on Twitter: @gafrontpage
www.FayetteFrontPage.com
www.GeorgiaFrontPage.com
www.PoliticalPotluck.com
www.ArtsAcrossGeorgia.com
---
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
