Once again....if you voted for this abomination of an amendment in November, you voted for the loophole. In fact it hardly counts as a loophole, because it was spelled out plainly in the text on the ballot.
We will see if the new legislation does a better job than the first, but let this be a lesson to you. Do your homework before you vote and don't fall for the bright shiny hook. Make sure you understand what the legislation will and won't do in any scenario.
You are suffering from thr same disease that makes you think people are too stupid to know what they werw voting fod. Those who did not want to limit tax hikes were "no votes". The resr tool what they couls get.
You got duped Dave. Hopefully the new legislation can give us the result we both want and not lead us into months of wasted time in hearings where the outcome was already decided.
Duped into thinking voting for 581 would end up any other way than it has. If it wasn't a bad bill then we wouldn't have to be "fixing" it a year later.
Duped: "to deceive someone, usually by making that person do something that they did not intend to do" That is far from truth concerning House Bill 581. First of all without this bill things just would have remained status quo which is NO property tax relief for for homestead property owners. Here is the history of how the opt out provision was added into the bipartisan House Bill 581 courtesy of Bob Jackson.
In 2023, most Georgia Legislators were hearing calls for help from their constituents: Property taxes were out of control throughout the state, and some homeowners were literally being taxed out of their lifetime homes. Something needed to be done statewide to bring property taxes under control.
Legislators returned to the 2024 legislative session with proposals to address this issue.
In the Senate Chuck Hufstetler, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and others sponsored Senate Bill 349. This bill mandated a new statewide homestead exemption similar to what is in House Bill 581.
The Senate Bill required that all affected tax jurisdictions in the state enact this exemption, unless the jurisdiction already had a local exemption that provided equal or greater benefits to homestead property within their jurisdiction.
Senate Bill 349 did not include an Opt-Out provision. It was mandatory and required that the new homestead exemption be enacted by the affected tax jurisdictions.
It also required a statewide referendum on the proposed exemption, as required in Georgia’s Constitution.
In the House of Representatives there were three bills related to property tax relief:
Representative Beth Camp and others sponsored House Bill 1185 which described a new homestead exemption similar to the one in Senate Bill 349. However, instead of making the new exemption mandatory, HB1185 included an Opt-In provision. The Opt-In provision would allow a local tax jurisdiction by majority vote of its governing board to enact the new homestead exemption without additional legislative action required, but subject to a local referendum approving that the new homestead exemption be provided.
This appears to have been an effort to standardize a new exemption acceptable in the legislature, but subject to choice of local tax jurisdictions to enact it, with no additional legislative action required. Because HB1185 used a new approach for establishing a state wide homestead exemption, the bill required an amendment to the State Constitution, similar to what is described in House Resolution 1022.
Representative Dale Washburn and others sponsored House Bill 1031which provided for minimum mandatory reappraisal of parcels, changed requirements for ad valorem property tax bills, revised provisions relative to appeals, and related matters.
Representative Noel Williams Jr. and others sponsored House Bill 1115which authorized a new flexible one-penny local option sales tax (‘FLOST’) for the purpose of property tax relief, and other matters.
One senate bill and three house bills, all addressing much needed property tax relief for homeowners, were approved in their respective General Assembly chambers of origin and sent to the other chamber.
In this situation, the principal sponsors of each bill became involved in negotiations in an effort to reach a satisfactory resolution. All sponsors and supporters had honest motivations to achieve a satisfactory consolidation of their separate efforts.
House Bill 581 is the result of those good faith negotiations. There was nothing nefarious or ill-intended in the bill.
As a result of the negotiations about final HB581 content, the Opt-In provision originally in HB1185 was changed to an Opt-Out provision.
The thinking of the legislators was probably that very few tax jurisdictions will choose to Opt-Out because property tax relief for homeowners is so desperately needed.
Well then their thinking "probable" turned out to be wrong.
I'm not sure why we are arguing. I didn't vote for the amendment in November because of the opt out provision. Had it not had the opt out I would have voted for it. I fail to see how I am on the wrong side here.
Correct. We will see how it goes this time. Hopefully everyone gets a clean amendment to vote on. A good guideline is don't vote for a bad bill because it has some good parts. Because you end up with the cluster we have seen here.
The bill is very direct without any other added provisions as House Bill 581 is now law so no additional provisions were needed. Here is Senate Bill 83 which has passed the Senate and will now go through the House.
This has already passed Senate easily on 2/11/2025.
Yea 49 Nay 0 NV 5 Exc 2
https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/69824#24760
It is in the House now. Depending on where you live in Bartow County it is either mitchell.scoggins@house.ga.gov or matthew.gambill@house.ga.gov in the House
Once again....if you voted for this abomination of an amendment in November, you voted for the loophole. In fact it hardly counts as a loophole, because it was spelled out plainly in the text on the ballot.
We will see if the new legislation does a better job than the first, but let this be a lesson to you. Do your homework before you vote and don't fall for the bright shiny hook. Make sure you understand what the legislation will and won't do in any scenario.
You are suffering from thr same disease that makes you think people are too stupid to know what they werw voting fod. Those who did not want to limit tax hikes were "no votes". The resr tool what they couls get.
You got duped Dave. Hopefully the new legislation can give us the result we both want and not lead us into months of wasted time in hearings where the outcome was already decided.
Duped how? HB581 will be amended by Senate Bill 83 this fall. The only people duped are the ones believing what the school board is selling.
Duped into thinking voting for 581 would end up any other way than it has. If it wasn't a bad bill then we wouldn't have to be "fixing" it a year later.
Duped: "to deceive someone, usually by making that person do something that they did not intend to do" That is far from truth concerning House Bill 581. First of all without this bill things just would have remained status quo which is NO property tax relief for for homestead property owners. Here is the history of how the opt out provision was added into the bipartisan House Bill 581 courtesy of Bob Jackson.
In 2023, most Georgia Legislators were hearing calls for help from their constituents: Property taxes were out of control throughout the state, and some homeowners were literally being taxed out of their lifetime homes. Something needed to be done statewide to bring property taxes under control.
Legislators returned to the 2024 legislative session with proposals to address this issue.
In the Senate Chuck Hufstetler, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and others sponsored Senate Bill 349. This bill mandated a new statewide homestead exemption similar to what is in House Bill 581.
The Senate Bill required that all affected tax jurisdictions in the state enact this exemption, unless the jurisdiction already had a local exemption that provided equal or greater benefits to homestead property within their jurisdiction.
Senate Bill 349 did not include an Opt-Out provision. It was mandatory and required that the new homestead exemption be enacted by the affected tax jurisdictions.
It also required a statewide referendum on the proposed exemption, as required in Georgia’s Constitution.
In the House of Representatives there were three bills related to property tax relief:
Representative Beth Camp and others sponsored House Bill 1185 which described a new homestead exemption similar to the one in Senate Bill 349. However, instead of making the new exemption mandatory, HB1185 included an Opt-In provision. The Opt-In provision would allow a local tax jurisdiction by majority vote of its governing board to enact the new homestead exemption without additional legislative action required, but subject to a local referendum approving that the new homestead exemption be provided.
This appears to have been an effort to standardize a new exemption acceptable in the legislature, but subject to choice of local tax jurisdictions to enact it, with no additional legislative action required. Because HB1185 used a new approach for establishing a state wide homestead exemption, the bill required an amendment to the State Constitution, similar to what is described in House Resolution 1022.
Representative Dale Washburn and others sponsored House Bill 1031which provided for minimum mandatory reappraisal of parcels, changed requirements for ad valorem property tax bills, revised provisions relative to appeals, and related matters.
Representative Noel Williams Jr. and others sponsored House Bill 1115which authorized a new flexible one-penny local option sales tax (‘FLOST’) for the purpose of property tax relief, and other matters.
One senate bill and three house bills, all addressing much needed property tax relief for homeowners, were approved in their respective General Assembly chambers of origin and sent to the other chamber.
In this situation, the principal sponsors of each bill became involved in negotiations in an effort to reach a satisfactory resolution. All sponsors and supporters had honest motivations to achieve a satisfactory consolidation of their separate efforts.
House Bill 581 is the result of those good faith negotiations. There was nothing nefarious or ill-intended in the bill.
As a result of the negotiations about final HB581 content, the Opt-In provision originally in HB1185 was changed to an Opt-Out provision.
The thinking of the legislators was probably that very few tax jurisdictions will choose to Opt-Out because property tax relief for homeowners is so desperately needed.
Well then their thinking "probable" turned out to be wrong.
I'm not sure why we are arguing. I didn't vote for the amendment in November because of the opt out provision. Had it not had the opt out I would have voted for it. I fail to see how I am on the wrong side here.
The opt out option ended up in House Bill 581 because some lawmakers would not pass it without the opt out provision.
Correct. We will see how it goes this time. Hopefully everyone gets a clean amendment to vote on. A good guideline is don't vote for a bad bill because it has some good parts. Because you end up with the cluster we have seen here.
The bill is very direct without any other added provisions as House Bill 581 is now law so no additional provisions were needed. Here is Senate Bill 83 which has passed the Senate and will now go through the House.
https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/legislation/document/20252026/232015