(Lawrenceville, Ga., June 29, 2018) – The Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners proposes lowering the millage rate for the County’s General Fund for 2018 to 7.209 mills, which is 2.58 percent lower than the 2017 millage rate. As required by state law, Gwinnett County will publish on Sunday a five-year history of the tax digest including the current digest and proposed millage rate.

The Gwinnett County Tax Assessor calculates the total value of all property in the county, called the tax digest, by conducting annual property updates of residential and commercial property and issuing assessment notices to the owners, in accordance with state law. The 2018 net digest grew by approximately $1.6 billion, or 5.6 percent, since 2017. 

When the total digest of taxable property is prepared, Georgia law requires taxing authorities to compute a millage rate for maintenance and operations that will produce the same total revenue based on the current year’s digest that last year’s millage rate would have produced had no reassessments occurred. Any millage rate above the calculated rate for consideration by the levying authority, including maintaining the same millage rate, is considered to be a tax increase. 

The millage rate adoption is scheduled to take place on July 17 at 2 p.m. Commissioners will also consider millage rates for police, fire and emergency services, development and code enforcement, and recreation funds.