Commissioner to examine digests.

(b) For any digest in any digest review year where the digest for the preceding digest review year was conditionally approved by the commissioner, the commissioner shall also carefully examine the digest to determine if it satisfactorily corrects the deficiencies that resulted in the digest for the preceding digest review year being conditionally approved.

(c) For each year, including each year that is not a digest review year for the county, the commissioner shall utilize the overall assessment ratio for the county as provided by the state auditor.

(d) It shall be the further duty of the commissioner to examine the itemizations of exempt properties appearing on the digest and, if in the judgment of the commissioner any properties appearing on the digest are subject to taxation, to so advise the board of tax assessors of the counties concerned with an explanation of his reasons for believing the property is subject to taxation.

(e) (1) The commissioner may, upon his or her own initiative or upon complaint by a taxpayer, examine the itemizations of properties appearing on the digest, and if in the judgment of the commissioner any properties are illegally appearing on the digest and should not be subject to taxation under this chapter, the commissioner shall strike such items from the digest and return the digest to the county for removal of such items and resubmission to the commissioner. The commissioner shall provide by rule and regulation procedures by which the county board of tax assessors may appeal such finding to the commissioner. If appealed by the board of tax assessors, the commissioner shall, after reviewing such appeal, issue a final order and include a finding as to the taxability of the digest items in dispute and shall finalize the digest in accordance therewith.

(2) If a property has been found by the commissioner to not be subject to taxation under this chapter and again appears on the digest at any time within five years of the initial determination of nontaxability and is again determined to be nontaxable, the commissioner shall strike such item from the digest and return the digest to the county for removal of such item and resubmission to the commissioner. The commissioner shall notify the Department of Community Affairs in writing of his or her finding, and upon receipt of such notice, the qualified local government status of such county shall be revoked for a period of three years following the receipt of such notice by the Department of Community Affairs unless reinstated earlier pursuant to this subsection. Upon such revocation, the governing authority of such county, without regard to any limitation of Code Section 48-5-295, shall be specifically authorized to remove immediately every member of the board of tax assessors and reappoint new members who shall serve for the unexpired terms of the removed members. The county governing authority shall provide written notification of such removal and new appointment to the commissioner. Upon certification of the corrected digest, the commissioner shall notify in writing the Department of Community Affairs, and upon receipt thereof, the Department of Community Affairs shall immediately reinstate the qualified local government status of such county.

(3) If a property has been found by the commissioner to not be subject to taxation under this chapter and if such nontaxable property has appeared on a county digest in any year within the preceding five-year period, then the taxpayer shall be entitled to file a petition directly with the Georgia Tax Tribunal for a refund of all such taxes illegally collected or taxes paid, interest equal to the bank prime loan rate as posted by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in statistical release H. 15 or any publication that may supersede it plus 3 percent calculated from the date of payment of such taxes, and attorney’s fees in an amount of not less than 15 percent nor more than 40 percent of the total of the illegally charged taxes and accrued interest. Such petition shall name the board of tax assessors and the tax receiver or tax commissioner of the county as the respondent in their official capacities and shall be served upon such board and tax receiver or tax commissioner. Service shall be accomplished by certified mail or statutory overnight delivery. The petition shall include a summary statement of facts and law upon which the petitioner relies in seeking the requested relief. The respondents shall file a response to the petitioner’s statement of facts and law which constitutes their answer with the tribunal no later than 30 days after the service of the petition. The respondents shall serve a copy of their response on the petitioner’s representative or, if the petitioner is not represented, on the petitioner and shall file a certificate of service with such response. If in any case a response has not been filed within the time required by this paragraph, the case shall automatically become in default unless the time for filing the response has been extended by agreement of the parties, for a period not to exceed 30 days, or by the judge of the tribunal. The default may be opened as a matter of right by the filing of a response within 15 days of the day of the default and payment of costs. At any time before the final judgment, the judge of the tribunal, in his or her discretion, may allow the default to be opened for providential cause that prevented the filing of the response, for excusable neglect, or when the tribunal judge, from all the facts, determines that a proper case has been made for the default to be opened on terms to be fixed by the tribunal judge. The tribunal judge shall proceed to hear and decide the matter and may grant appropriate relief under the law and facts presented. History. Code 1981, § 48-5-342, enacted by Ga. L. 1988, p. 1763, § 1; Ga. L. 1991, p. 728, § 2; Ga. L. 1992, p. 2494, § 2; Ga. L. 2000, p. 1683, § 3; Ga. L. 2016, p. 277, § 1/HB 364; Ga. L. 2017, p. 774, § 48/HB 323. The 2016 amendment, effective July 1, 2016, added subsection (e). The 2017 amendment, effective May 9, 2017, part of an Act to revise, modernize, and correct the Code, revised punctuation in the second sentence of paragraph (e)(2). Editor’s notes. Ga. L. 1992, p. 2494, § 10, not codified by the General Assembly, provided, in part: “County tax digests that were conditionally approved or disapproved by the commissioner for tax year 1991 in accordance with Article 5A of Chapter 5 of Title 48 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated as it existed on January 1, 1992, shall be considered conditionally approved for each succeeding year beginning January 1, 1992, until such time as the first digest review year occurs for the county under the provisions of this Act.” Ga. L. 2000, p. 1683, § 11(c), not codified by the General Assembly, provides that Sections 2 through 10 of the Act shall be applicable to the 2000 tax digests and any subsequent tax digests. JUDICIAL DECISIONS Editor’s notes. In light of the similarity of the statutory provisions, decisions under former Code Section 48-5-271 are included in the annotations for this Code section. Commissioner may delegate to the commissioner’s staff the mechanics of evaluating the tax digest of the various counties. Fulton County v. Strickland, 251 Ga. 473, 306 S.E.2d 299, 1983 Ga. LEXIS 846 (1983) (decided under former O.C.G.A. § 48-5-271). Section does not concern individual taxpayer’s assessment. — O.C.G.A. § 48-5-343(c) is part of an article outlining the Georgia State Revenue Commissioner’s duty to examine county tax digests throughout the state and within a county for the purpose of determining if the valuations of property for taxation purposes are reasonably uniform and equalized between counties and within counties and has nothing to do with an individual taxpayer’s assessment; the statute creates no burden of proof on a board of tax assessors in a dispute with an individual taxpayer. Hill v. Hall County Bd. of Tax Assessors, 275 Ga. App. 504, 621 S.E.2d 517, 2005 Ga. App. LEXIS 1012 (2005), overruled in part, Gilmer County Bd. of Tax Assessors v. Spence, 309 Ga. App. 482, 711 S.E.2d 51, 2011 Ga. App. LEXIS 371 (2011). Division of duties between commissioner and counties. — It is the duty of the commissioner to ascertain the value of the entire class of property, and to provide for uniformity among the counties. It is the responsibility of the county to provide for equalization between properties within a class. The commissioner is precluded from subdividing classes of property and applying different factors for each subdivision within a class. Fulton County v. Strickland, 251 Ga. 473, 306 S.E.2d 299, 1983 Ga. LEXIS 846 (1983) (decided under former O.C.G.A. § 48-5-271). Jurisdiction of superior court. — Superior court was without jurisdiction to apply an equalization factor in determining assessment based on a jury verdict. Shaheen v. Cobb County Bd. of Tax Assessors, 167 Ga. App. 780, 307 S.E.2d 301, 1983 Ga. App. LEXIS 2614 (1983) (decided under former O.C.G.A. § 48-5-271). Choateness dependent upon approval of digests. — Ad valorem taxes did not become choate until the county’s tax digest was approved by the State Revenue Commission pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 48-5-342; however, intrastate tax lien priorities do not depend on choateness, but are determined by state statute, specifically O.C.G.A. § 48-2-5(b), which delineates the priority of tax liens and makes state tax liens superior to county tax liens regardless of date. Ellenberg v. J.M. Tull Metals (In re McIntyre Grading & Pipe, Inc.), 193 Bankr. 983, 1996 Bankr. LEXIS 274 (Bankr. N.D. Ga. 1996).