The Crossville city council approved a
provision to provide a property tax freeze for senior citizens who
meet income limits meaning that if the eligible property owner
properly files each year, their property tax bill would not increase.
The matter was brought to the council's
agenda by council member J. H. Graham III who outlined the change in
state Constitution that was approved by voters statewide several
years ago. Mr. Graham explained that the state comptrollers office
would calculate the income limit each year for the county and that in
the case of improvements to a property, the value of the improvements
would be taxed.
Graham said he knocked on a lot of
doors running for election and said “most of the folks that were
over 65 on fixed income would really appreciated this.” Graham
moved to adopt the resolution to put the property tax freeze into
effect. Graham's motion received a second from councilman Danny
Wyatt.
Councilman Scot Shanks questioned city
finance director Fred Houston about how the program would be
administered and how the city could handle that? Houston explained
that the process would be difficult but that they could do it if they
have to. HE said the taxes for those under the freeze would have to
be done manually and not on the computer as most taxes are
calculated. According to Houston, the more that take advantage of
the more work it will be.
Houston added that the participant will
have to come in each year to prove their income falls under the limit
set and if for some reason they skip a year they could reapply but
the freeze would be at the new tax rate if it had changed since they
first applied for the freeze.
Councilwoman Pamala Harris said that
she knew it would be work to set up at first but that “we need to
serve our community the best way that we can.”
It was agreed that the program would
not become an issue unless the council approved a tax increase.
The motion was approved unanimously.
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