Five years ago, the real and personal property portions of the county’s tax digest totaled $1.56 billion.
For the 2023 digest, the preliminary real/personal property value total is almost double that 2018
figure.
The Gilmer County Board of Assessors approved forwarding that part of the 2023 digest to Tax Commissioner Becky Marshall when meeting last week.
The tax commissioner’s office will add motor vehicles and other values and exemptions before the final digest is submitted to the state Department of Revenue (DOR) for review.
The preliminary $3.09 billion real/personal property total includes $2.99 billion in real property (homes and land) and $100 million in personal property values. It does not include any value changes that could result from pending appeals. These digest values are at the 40 percent assessed rate.
Theresa Gooch, chief appraiser, said the preliminary digest shows a 26 percent increase in real property values since last year. The county’s total taxable land is 198,020 acres and 34,995 parcels.
“The total value figure is up from last year,” Gooch said. “All indications from the reports say the gross digest will be up, but it will be up to the tax commissioner to determine that total percentage once she applies all the exemptions, heavy equipment, motor vehicles and everything like that into the digest.”
Gooch said the assessors office received a total of 805 appeals during the recent 45-day appeal period, which ended July 7.
So far, 53 appeals have been resolved, 235 have been forwarded to the Board of Equalization for hearings and 264 are still active.
“We (usually) average between 700-800 (appeals) per year. We had 769 last year,” Gooch said.
The 100 percent value in dispute with this year’s appeal count is almost $68 million.
Because the values being appealed are more than 3 percent of the total gross digest figure, the assessors office could ask the DOR for an extra 180 days to complete appeal resolution and hearings, Gooch noted.
“I don’t think we’ll need that. We should be able to process all our appeals in 180 days and not need an additional period,” she added.