Upson officials outline plan to use new "floating" sales tax to lower property bills; propose 26% city share

Upson County officials said at a public town hall that a new state law authorizing a floating local-option sales tax would generate an estimated more than $5 million a year and must be used only to reduce property taxes.

The county’s chairman, Dan Brute, told about an hour-long meeting that House Bill 581, which he called the Save Our Homes Act, froze homestead assessment values at their 2024 level and authorized a one-cent local sales tax whose revenue “can only be used to reduce property taxes.” He said the county’s staff modeled three distribution options and recommends a 26% share to the city so homeowners inside and outside the city pay the same tax on identical-valued properties.

Brute said the 26% share comes from a city property digest of roughly $357 million and a county digest of about $1.025 billion, for a combined taxable digest of about $1.38 billion; the city’s share of that combined digest is about 25.86 percent. Using a $5 million annual revenue estimate, Brute said, the 26% split would yield roughly $1.3 million to the city and would “completely eliminate the city M&O tax” for homesteaded property under the county’s calculations.

Why it matters: the law and the county’s proposal target homeowners who hold long-standing homesteads and could face rising bills because of recent jumps in fair-market values. Brute emphasized the measure was intended “to help people stay in their homes,” and cited the bill’s provision that…