At its April meeting, the Gilmer Board of Tax Assessors approved a decision to give certain taxpayers one last chance to verify or correct their status. Approximately 11 properties in Gilmer County have the erroneous status of homestead use, which gives these taxpayers significant exemptions.

This week, Chief Tax Appraiser Richard Lamb brought the homestead issue to the board, seeking guidance on how to resolve the imbroglio. Lamb explained the county has 6792 properties with homestead exemptions of varying types.

“We discovered (in) the latter part of last year,”

Lamb said,

“there are 16 LLCs (Limited Liability Companies) that have homestead exemptions.”

According to Georgia Code,

“The homestead exempted must be actually occupied as the permanent residence and place of abode by the applicant awarded the exemption”

(GA 48-5-40, section K). This excludes rental property situations and places of business.

As mentioned by Lamb, the exemptions are designed to assist low to moderate income taxpayers. One local exemption allows $50,000 against the assessed value. Here, the law, though, Lamb said, is based on an adjusted gross income of $20,000 or less. Other exemptions within the homestead status include, but are not limited to, exemptions for those 65 and over, surviving spouses of veterans killed in action, surviving spouses of fire fighters or policeman killed in the line of duty, and widows caring for children.

Board Member Randy Bell explained that some people are placing their properties in LLCs for the purpose of estate planning, in case they go into nursing homes.

During the meeting Lamb emphasized that companies are not legally granted these exemptions. Also, in a correspondence with FYN this week, Bell underscored Lamb’s statement, asserting,

“The law is clear that LLCs, LLPs, and INCS cannot get homestead exemptions. It is strictly available to individuals for their primary residence ONLY.”

Lamb said he wrote each of the 16 taxpayers a letter and only five responded. These five, Lamb said, were not aware of the status and made the appropriate corrections with the county, while the others remain unresponsive.

“There are 11,”

Lamb said,

“that just aren’t responding to me at all.”

He said he is trying to do everything he can to get these individuals to come in and correct the situation. If they do not respond, he said, he is essentially bound by state law to delete the homestead exemptions from the file. Further, he suggested if he doesn’t change the status, the county could receive a penalty from the state. As the discussion ensued, Chairman Tom Porter reminded the board

“Those individuals…especially those over 65, are going to (get) huge, thousands (of dollars) in tax bills (without their homestead exemptions).”

Responding, Bell said,

“We can’t just not do our jobs because it’s going to make somebody mad.”

Porter and the rest of the board agreed.

In the end, the board approved a motion to allow Lamb to send a final, certified letter of notification to the 11 homestead exemptions and, if he does not receive a response by May 11th, he will delete the exemptions from these properties. The first round of notifications was sent on September of 2011, Lamb said.