The last day to file an appeal on a 2012 assessment notice is July 5. Appeals can be sent by mail or hand-delivered. Appeals will not be accepted if sent by electronic mail or fax. The county does not currently have a secure site for delivery of electronic mail or fax.

Based on this information, the Board of Assessors adopted a policy to not accept appeals by email in March 2011 and in March 2012 adopted a policy to not accept appeals by fax. Undeliverable notices that are returned will be posted in the courthouse and posted on the Board of Assessors Web site for 30 days.

The new statewide uniform notice will alleviate taxpayers who own property in more than one county from having to interpret different formats of assessment notices. The notice includes contact information for the person in the office administratively responsible for handling an appeal; the Web site address of the Effingham County Board of Tax Assessors and a statement that all documents and records used to determine the current value are available upon the request of a taxpayer.

Required in the appeal are the options for the appeal process; a statement is on the notice that options must be declared when the appeal is filed. The options are an appeal to the Board of Equalization with the right to appeal to superior court; the appeal to arbitration without the right to an appeal to superior court; and for non-homesteaded property valued greater than $1 million an appeal to a hearing officer with the right to appeal to superior court. The options are located in the middle of the notice under the statement - "At the time of filing your appeal you must select one of the following."

In the center of the page on the notice is a description of the property; the property ID number - on notices of real property this is the map and parcel number of the property, acreage and property address. If the property is in Conservation Use the covenant year is listed. If you receive homestead exemption the homestead code of the type of exemption applied to the property is listed.

If the notice is coded NO-SO, homestead exemption is not applied to the property. The Returned, Previous and Current year’s value as well as Other Value – CUV if you have applied for the Conservation Use Valuation Assessment are printed under the description information.

Your taxes will be based on the current year assessed value. You have the right to appeal these values to the Effingham County Board of Tax Assessors. The notice also contains an estimate of the current year’s taxes based on the current proposed assessment value for all taxing jurisdictions that may apply to the tax bill.

The 2011 millage rate was used in the estimation as the requirement states that the last year’s millage rate be used for the estimation. The notice contains a statement explaining the estimation and that the actual tax bill you receive may be more or less than this estimate. The tax estimation is located at the bottom of the page with the total estimated taxes at the bottom at the right of the page.

The Board of Tax Assessors requests that you review your property description, and should you feel your property description information is not correct, contact the Assessor’s office.

You can find the answer to some questions and view property information and parcel maps on the Web site at www.effinghamcounty.org; go to Tax Assessors department. The new property values for 2012 have been updated on the Web site.