Some homeowners waking up to find their property taxes have skyrocketed nearly $1K

COBB COUNTY, Ga. — Tens of thousands of homeowners in Cobb County are looking at likely increases to their property taxes.

The county mailed out tax assessments over the past few days, and with property values up, so are those passements.

Cobb County officials told Channel 2 consumer investigator Justin Gray that not only did they send out more increases than they have for many years, but those percentage increases were steeper too.

But it’s a problem not unique to Cobb County with fast-rising home prices.

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Scott Whiddon said he was shocked to see the property tax assessment for his Cobb County home had skyrocketed after years of just modest increases.

“I was pretty shocked and taken (a)back really,” Whiddon said. “All of a sudden it goes up 28% in one year, and my taxes are up almost $800 to $1,000 now.”

Whiddon is far from alone.

The challenges of metro Atlanta’s skyrocketing home values for potential homebuyers has gotten a lot of attention the past year.

But for homeowners, the increase in value likely means an increase for your tax assessment too.

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“I’m not sitting on an oil deposit or anything like that. So I don’t see why my home went up in value that much in one year,” Whiddon said.

Cobb County mailed out more than 235,000 tax assessments in recent days – 166,000 of those were increases. That’s 70% of the assessments that increased from 2021.

Ron Rakow analyzes tracks property taxes for the Lincoln Institute of Public Policy and said Georgians still pay lower property taxes than the majority of other states.

“When I look at Georgia from the outside, the property tax burdens in Georgia are actually fairly low compared to the rest of the country,” Rakow said.

But for Whiddon, a firefighter, his wife, a nurse, and their 4-year-old son at home, this is another hit in a year where everything is costing more.

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“It’s like a burden on top of inflation, the gas prices, food and day care and everything. Everything in our lives is going up,” Whiddon said.

The assessment is not a tax bill, and the number listed on it is an estimate based on the previous year’s millage rate.

The board of commissioners will meet in July to set the tax rate.

That will only effect so much, as about 70% of Cobb County property tax bills are made up of school taxes.

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