State Law requires property values to be reassessed every four years. This is the year for Clarke County to be reappraised, and workers with the tax collector’s office have been hard at work to make sure they are reassessing property values to meet the state’s standards.
“Our land roll is due to be sent to the Board of Supervisors on July 1,” explained Tax Assessor Hope Herrington. “Now is the time for citizens to exam values and dispute the values if they believe that their property value is higher or lower than what our office calculated. It will be too late to dispute when the tax bill comes out.”
The property value of the home has a direct impact on how much property taxes will be. At this time, the office is unable to calculate what the taxes will be because the supervisors will not set the new millage rate until later in the year. However, any increase or decrease in property value can have an effect on the cost of taxes based on what the millage rate is set at.
For those would like to evaluate what their property value has been set at after this year’s reassessment, there are steps that will need to be followed.
“The first thing you would need to do is call the appraisal office at 601-776-1021 and talk about the value. You would need to know what the value was last year and what it has been set at this year to do the comparison,” explained Hope. “If you got a card in the mail, it went up ten percent or more. If you didn’t get a card, it could have gone up anywhere from one to nine percent or not changed at all. This is value, not taxes. By the time the tax bill comes out, it will be too late. This is just the true value of your property.”
If anyone is unable to settle on a property value with the appraisal office and would like to set a hearing with the appraiser, hearings will be scheduled for the week of June 22, 2020.
“If we can’t work out the value with our office, then we can have a hearing with the appraiser and come up with a value that will meet the state requirements,” stated Hope. “We may not all be happy with the results, but it will have to meet the state requirements so that we will be in compliance with the state. Taxes don’t always make everyone happy, but they’re a necessary evil so that we can support our local government.”
Citizens must call and set up an appointment to have a hearing.
Anyone who has agricultural land should be aware of changes in value.
“The value of agricultural land has changed. They change every year,” said Hope. “The Department of Revenue sends us a small track schedule and a large track schedule, and it has a cost per acre. Those did change, and we have no control over that. The Department of Revenue gives us those schedules, and it is set per acre per soil type what you will be taxed on that value.”
Now is the time for everyone to examine what the property value is one individual properties.
For more information or any questions, contact the tax assessor’s office at 601-776-5084.
