When you receive a Notice of Assessment (PT-306), you typically have 45-days after the printed notice date to file a tax appeal. For everyone’s convenience, that deadline date for filing a tax appeal is published on the upper-right hand corner of the notice.
However, in larger counties, assessment notices are sometimes sent in batches over a period of several weeks. As such, property owners with multiple properties may see assessment notices trickle in with different notice and deadline dates. Property owners who have multiple properties located across multiple counties have the added responsibility of tracking them across different tax assessor offices.
It is very important to look for and receive an assessment notice for every property you own. Otherwise, you might unhappily discover that you are unable to file a tax appeal on a property that needs to be appealed. Claiming that you never received your assessment notice and missing the deadline date will not permit you to file a tax appeal in the current year. You will simply have to wait until next year.
Missing the 45-day deadline is an unforgiving and potentially expensive mistake.
Ideally, you want to receive, assemble, and sort all your assessment notices in deadline date order before beginning filing your tax appeals. The reason for this is it is simply more efficient to prepare and deliver the tax appeals at one time. But in some situations, that may not be possible.
Property owners with multiple properties across multiple counties will have no choice but to deal with each tax assessors office separately and independently. Each tax assessors office will have “their own way” of doing things and you want to be prepared for that.
Generally speaking, I am not a big fan of being first to file tax appeals. The advantages of filing early is that you have peace of mind that you met the 45-day tax appeal deadline with a lot of time to spare. You are also in “front of the wave” of tax appeals that continue to the very last day.
By filing your tax appeal early, the tax assessors office will also respond back to your tax appeal sooner. They will either make a value adjustment based on what you submitted or they will return a “No Change”. I generally do not like “No Change” responses because it means I am forced to the BOE stage.
Honestly, it doesn’t really surprise me and is quite common for most tax appeals to advanced to BOE but it is nice to receive a return valuation that I can live with.
Each year during tax appeal season, the tax assessors office is gathering and compiling data as they process the incoming tax appeals. They are constantly making adjustments to their database based on their research as well as taxpayer appeals. They look at data patterns taxpayers may uncover through their tax appeals. If you are at the front of the line with your tax appeal, there is very little new data and patterns they can find that may be favorable to you. They will likely respond with a “No Change”.
But if you file you tax appeal towards the end of the 45-day deadline, they might have more data from earlier appeals that might be favorable to you.
A negative consequence of filing later is that the BOE hearing will likely be scheduled towards the end of the year in November and December, an inconvenient time for many people. You are allowed only one rescheduling and if you don’t like the rescheduled date you will either have to live with it.
Ultimately, if you are filing your own tax appeals, you also know your schedule the best. If you feel that running up against the end of the year BOE schedule is too inconvenient, I generally suggest you file your tax appeals earlier.
But if you really want to increase the likelihood of getting your way at the end of tax appeal season, my suggestion is to file a little later than sooner.
I wrote a book “TAX FREEZE: How to File & Win Property Taxes in Georgia” (available on Amazon) which will help you through your GA property tax appeals.
I launched a new YouTube channel called TAX FREEZE Command. You should subscribe to it to get my latest insights and information on GA property tax appeals and other tax matters.
I also have a playlist of YouTube videos for property owners to educate themselves about the GA property tax appeal process.