A relatively small number of Rockmart property owners might have scratched their heads this year at their tax bill, but now a correction or refund is coming due to a software error when information was being transferred from the County level to the city level.
City officials published a public notice this afternoon explaining that no more than 300 property owners who either got a tax bill or already paid their bill were overcharged for how much they owed this year, and that corrections are underway.
Here’s the notice they posted:
City Manager Stacey Smith explained that homestead exemption amounts didn’t transfer over when the City received tax information from the Tax Assessor’s office.
“The assessed value of homes should have remained the same because the city lowered their millage rate this year,” according to Smith. “If you qualified for the floating homestead, your taxes should have been cheaper.”
The good news? The city has already taken steps to fix the issue and make it right with those who have already paid. Smith said that new tax bills are already in the mail for those who haven’t yet paid their property taxes and have the homestead exemption, and checks have been cut and will be mailed to those who already paid their bill and were overcharged.
“As soon as we discovered the issue, city officials went back and recalculated the bills to ensure the correct amount of tax was being charged,” Smith said.
She said this was a software error caused between the transferring of data between the County Tax Assessor’s Office and the city to determine amounts to be paid by property owners. It had no impact on the amounts charged by the County or by the Polk School District for their annual collections.
“We apologize for the inconvenience and confusion that was caused due to the software error,” Smith said.
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