Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to authorize the General Assembly to provide by general law for a state-wide homestead exemption that serves to limit increases in the assessed value of homesteads, but which any county, consolidated government, municipality, or local school system may opt out of upon the completion of certain procedures?
It took me a bit to find much on this. I feel like I should know this. I own a house and deal with homestead exemption. But If I waited until “day of” and read this – I would have had NO CLUE what the fuck this was doing.
So let’s begin with a little background. Homestead gives a tax break to residential homeowners. You have to be living in the house (so it doesn’t apply to your 2nd+ house) on January 1st and must be your primary residence (you actually live there, you can’t claim more than one, etc.). Currently, only 36 of Georgia’s 159 counties off a homestead exemption.
So point one is that this new amendment would apply an exemption across the board. There is apparently an “opt out” pathway for counties or HOAs (if I understood what I read) but as one source said “it’s an onerous process.” I didn’t dig in to find out what that process entails.
The stated argument by the politicians who passed it (from the legislature where more than 80% of total representatives supported it), is that this will help tie the tax to inflation rather than market value. So houses that have massive value jumps (like most in Georgia have the past few years) would have been protected from massive tax hikes. According to one of the articles I read, some people have experienced something like a 50% tax hike.
There are apparently no public opponents. 11 Georgia senators voted against it, but never publicly stated why. So… Maybe they just always vote against bills sponsored by Republicans because they are team first. No clue.
I honestly haven’t decided how I’m voting on this. On the one hand, the ~120 counties which do NOT currently offer the exemption are some of the poorest and probably need or want every penny. Cutting $20k on every residential house…. A county that already struggles to cover their bills may suddenly find themselves with a 5%, 10%, or more drop in tax revenue because the opt out is too “onerous.”
On the other hand, every person in my office who has talked about their property taxes (a surprisingly safer “political” topic) has complained about their taxes “skyrocketing” the past few years. As property values have sometimes doubled the cost of the house – taxes were re-evaluated accordingly and went way up. Mine went up a little, but not drastically. I think my county took into account “big changes, slow adjustments” but…. still yikes. And it hits the most vulnerable the hardest – older folks on fixed incomes, young people trying to buy a new house for the first time….
I’m going to ponder it. Sorry, I don’t have an easy answer!
References I looked at:
https://reason.org/voters-guide/georgia-amendment-1-would-create-a-local-homestead-property-tax-exemption/
https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/politics/elections/2-amendments-this-question-all-ga-ballots-explainer/93-7d79c8e0-390e-4d38-a24b-878c91bacff5
https://www.ajc.com/politics/two-tax-amendments-to-georgia-constitution-put-on-the-2024-ballot/32CDNYT3UVHJXJSQR7LNSTK5U4/
Dream by Day 