Georgia Property Tax Appeal Calculator

The 45 day filing deadline

Every Georgia county mails an annual notice of assessment, usually in late spring or early summer. The notice states the fair market value the county has placed on your property for the tax year, and it starts a clock. Under O.C.G.A. 48-5-311, an owner who disagrees with the assessment has 45 days from the date printed on the notice to file a written appeal with the county board of tax assessors.

The clock runs from the notice date, not from the day the notice reached your mailbox and not from the day you first read it. Enter the date on your notice below to get the filing deadline and the days remaining.

Whether an appeal pays for itself

Georgia taxes property on its assessed value, which O.C.G.A. 48-5-7 sets at 40 percent of fair market value for most property. Your bill is that assessed value, less any exemptions, multiplied by the combined millage rate for your county, city, and school district. One mill is one dollar of tax per thousand dollars of assessed value.

That arithmetic makes the appeal decision a plain comparison. If the value on your notice is higher than what the market actually supports, the difference between the two, taken at 40 percent and run through your millage rate, is the annual tax attributable to the overstatement. Weigh that against the cost of proving your case. A value established on appeal is also generally held for the two tax years that follow under O.C.G.A. 48-5-299(c), with exceptions such as new improvements, so a successful appeal often saves more than a single year of the difference.

The second field asks what value the market supports, not what number you would prefer. An appraisal performed for a tax appeal documents that supportable value with comparable sales and a defensible adjustment analysis, which is the evidence a board of equalization expects to see.