MOULTRIE, Ga. — Tuesday evening, the Moultrie City Council announced an expected 1.61-mill decrease in the city tax rate, bringing it down to 8.14. The rate will mean different things to different property owners over the coming year, depending on the results of recent property revaluations.

The millage rate hasn’t been set yet. The city council performed a first and second reading of it Tuesday, and a third and final reading are required for it to take effect. That action is expected at the council’s Sept. 15 meeting.

Assuming it’s approved, a lower millage rate will generally result in lower property taxes — but City Finance Director Gary McDaniel warned some property owners could see an overall increase in taxes despite the lower rate, if their property’s value increased enough.

Let’s talk a hypothetical, he said.

“Let’s say the property was appraised last year for $100,000 and when they reappraised it, it went up to $200,000,” he said. “If the value of the property is upheld by whoever the arbitrator is and that property is allowed to stay at that assessed value, where they paid 9.75 mills on 40 percent of $100,000, they’ll be paying 8.14 mills on (40 percent of) $200,000.”

So in this hypothetical situation, the property owner would pay a smaller rate on a much larger value, which would translate into more overall property tax.

Continuing with the hypothetical: Let’s say the property owner successfully appealed so that the property value was reverted to what it was last year, $100,000. Now, he’s looking at paying 8.14 mills on $40,000 instead of the 9.75 mills he paid last year.

That’s around $325-$326 in taxes property owners would pay.

“It could possibly mean a tax cut for those properties that are reassessed back to their previous value,” McDaniel said. “Because the mills went down, the amount of taxes they pay will be less.”

A doubling of property values is an extreme case — although that’s what many commercial property owners are looking at this year. Their properties had not been revalued in about 30 years, county officials have said, so when they were revalued over the last 12 months, those values have jumped dramatically. 

But many property owners, especially of residential properties, could be looking at smaller increases in property values that might translate into decreases or smaller increases in overall tax under the lower millage rate.

McDaniel said take for instance if a $100,000 property was reappraised to be $125,000.

“Instead of being taxed on $40,000, they’d be taxed on $50,000,” he said. “The $50,000 times the .00814 [millage rate], their taxes would actually go up from $390 to $407.”

Though if the same situation occurred last year with a millage of 9.75 (.00975), the property owner would’ve been paying $487.50.

“What the rollback does is that you’re not charging them more for the same assessed value,” McDaniel said. “It may go up a little bit, but it’s not going to go up [like it would have with the larger millage rate].”

Colquitt County’s Chief Appraiser Jim Mac Booth told the Colquitt County Commission Tuesday that there are 491 appeals for commercial property valuations and 325 appeals for residential property valuations. Most of the commercial properties are located in the county’s incorporated areas, primarily in the City of Moultrie. The appeals deadline was Aug. 27, and officials will begin hearing the appeals within a few weeks. All results may not be known until some time in December.