The Chattooga County Commissioner has annoucned his intention to increase the property taxes it will levy this year by 21.47 perecent in the incorporated areas and 23.01 percent in the unincorporated areas of the county over the rollback millage rate.

Each year, the Board of Tax Assessors is required to review the assessed value for property tax purposes of taxable property in the county.  When the trend of prices on properties that have recently sold in the county indicate there has been an increase or decrease in the fair market value of any specific property, the Board of Tax Assessors is required by law to re-determine the value of such property and adjust the assessments.  This is called reassessment.

When the total digest of taxable property is prepaed, Georgia law requres that a rollback millage rate must be computed that will produce the same total revenue on the current year’s digest that last year’s millage rate would have produced had no reassessments occurred.

The budget tentatively adopted by the Chattooga County Commissioner requires a millage rate higher than the rollback millage rate, therefore, before the Chattooga County Commissioner can finalize the tentative budget and set a final millage rate, Georgia law requires three public hearings to be held to allow the public an opportunity to express their opinions on the increase.

All concerened citizens are invited to the public hearings on this tax increase to be held at the Chattooga County Civic Center located at 44 Highway 48 in Summerville, Georgia at the indicated times:

Friday – August 6, 2010 at 6 PM

Monday – August 16, 2010 at 10 AM

Monday – August 16, 2010 at 2 PM