Anyone here know Gwinnett county's Homestead exemption? (Atlanta: assessors, house)

[richard112360]

A clerk at the Gwinnett county tax assessors office quoted a Homestead exemption of $422. I don't believe this is the case. Fulton County which has the highest property taxes in metro Atlanta has an Homestead exemption of $15,000.

[rackensack]

You're comparing apples and apple butter.

The amount quoted you is the reduction in your property taxes resulting from application of your homestead exemption, and sounds about right for a house in the $185K-$200K range, depending on a variety of other factors. For example, the house we sold in unincorporated Gwinnett County in November of 2006 for $192,000 has a current appraised value of $164,300, a tax due of $1673.35, and a homestead exemption savings of $540.41 (meaning the taxes would have been $2213.76 without the homestead exemption).

The $15,000 amount you quoted for Fulton County is the amount deducted from the value of the property for the homestead exemption. There's a base amount specified by the state, but individual counties can enact more generous exemptions, and most have. Many counties, including Gwinnett, also now freeze valuations at a "base year" (the year the current homeowner purchased the property) so that you're not affected by increasing property values in the valuation for tax purposes (though some types of taxes are based on the appreciated valuation -- too complicated to go into here).

Basically the equation is:

((.40) * (MarketValue - HomesteadExemption)) * MillageRate = TaxDue

So what Gwinnett County quoted you was the difference between the values for "TaxDue" with and without the standard $10,000 homestead exemption. What you're comparing that to is the "HomesteadExemption" value for Fulton County.

The state Department of Revenue has a handy PDF file that gives you all the details for Gwinnett County (they have one for every county, in fact) at http://www.etax.dor.ga.gov/ptd/Count...f_Gwinnett.pdf.
For other counties, see Georgia Department of Revenue and select your county from the menu.