Habersham’s 2025 tax digest will be discussed at the upcoming Board of Tax Assessors meeting on Monday, July 14. The assessors must approve the digest before it is approved by the county’s tax commissioner.
Board meeting date was up in the air
County Clerk Brandalin Carnes said that two meetings were advertised because the assessors were uncertain that the digest would be ready before the Friday meeting. In the event that the digest is not ready by Friday, Carnes will update the public notice.
Chief Appraiser Joan Church confirmed that the Monday meeting will be cancelled if the Friday meeting happens as scheduled.
“Right now, we are going through the digest and doing our edits and trying to get our calculations right,” she said.
As reported by County Manager Tim Sims during the Board of Commissioners meeting on June 30, the vendor responsible for working the tax assessment software mistakenly increased the county’s exemptions introduced by GA House Bill 581. Church said that the mistake has been a cause for delay while completing the digest.
“Hopefully those issues will be resolved by Friday, but if not, we’ll cancel that meeting and meet on Monday,” she said.
Church expects increased, frozen values
The chief appraiser warned that the digest will show increased property values for Habersham residents. She could not give an estimate of how much the values would go up.
Despite this increase, Church reminded that although digest values have changed, a lot of people will not realize a difference on their tax bills because of the exemptions provided in HB 581. “They will be paying on frozen values,” she said.
Now Habersham will update the article to reflect the correct meeting date. Check back on Thursday for updates.
Now Habersham has updated this article to reflect the correct meeting date.
