The Gilmer County Board of Assessors ultimately voted to strike a $25,000 expense for hiring an outside company to conduct in-person personal property audits at local businesses, but not without discussing the topic at length during a meeting last week.
The board was initially split on deciding whether or not to include the $25,000 expense in the assessors office budget for the coming year.
When meeting in August, they voted three to two in favor of leaving the expense in the budget. The topic was revisited in a budget discussion at the board’s Sept. 19 meeting.
The $25,000 expense would cover representatives from Traylor Business Services, of Kennesaw, performing onsite personal property audits audits. Assessors office staff would accompany the hired auditors some of the time to get more experience in performing onsite audits. Up to 70 accounts could be reviewed for that price, said Donna Walker, personal property appraiser and assessor board secretary.
“We’re trying to focus more on the ones who aren’t complying to start out with. You could also have taxpayers who think they’re doing everything they’re supposed to, but, because they don’t even know what they’re supposed to be doing, they’re not,” Walker said.
Walker said the assessors office typically conducts only in-house desk audits, not in-person visits, for personal property. More in-person audits need to be done to verify that personal property and equipment used by businesses is being reported and reported correctly, she noted.
“It may not even be their equipment, Walker said. “They could have a bunch of equipment they’re leasing that the leasing company isn’t reporting. It’s not always that they’re not reporting it because they don’t want to. It’s because they don’t understand it.”
There are more than 3,000 personal property business accounts in the county and the assessors office tries to update a third of the personal property audits a year. The state Department of Revenue wants assessors offices to verify their findings in person, but the local office is short on time and staff to do the onsite audits, Walker noted. Many other Georgia counties have hired outside firms to do their in-person auditing, she said.
Jerry Davis, the assessor board’s vice chairman, said there’s a problem in some taxpayers not understanding the personal property reporting process or not reporting at all, but he’s still against hiring an outside company to audit local businesses.
“We need people to comply, but people aren’t complying because they don’t understand. We need a better approach than paying someone $25,000 to come in and look at 70 random (accounts),” said Davis, who runs his own appraisal business.
Gary Engel, owner of local winery Engelheim Vineyards, said the personal property audits put a drain on local businesses, and they are a “detriment to supporting businesses” that create revenue for the county.
“I’m torn both ways. I look at it from a business perspective and a taxpayer’s perspective,” he added. “As a business owner, it costs me as much as it’s been costing the county to have my accountant (working), which isn’t cheap.”
Board member John Williamson said it’s more a matter of the office being compliant with what the state expects it to do.
“If we don’t become compliant, we are exposing ourselves possibly to some malfeasance and adjustments made by the state. We’ve been down that road before,” Williamson said.
Walker said the assessors office hasn’t been found to be noncompliant, but, during a review earlier this year, DOR representatives did ask how many in-person audits the office had done. The answer was none, and the officials said they’ll be asking again next year, she noted.
“If it’s in the law and you’re supposed to be paying taxes and some are and some are not, I think they should be trying to figure out who is not compliant or there may be some who’ve been reporting it wrong and need some help,” said board member Lisa Bradley.
The board ultimately voted three to two in favor of cutting the expense from the budget. Engel, who voted last month to leave it in, supported the cut this time, as did Davis and board chairman Bill Logan.
“I don’t see the value of it. I think there’s got to be another way,” Engel said.