Want lower property taxes? Many Georgia landowners may already
qualify for a tax break that’s been in effect for a decade. They
just don’t know it.

Georgia introduced the “Conservation Use Valuation” taxation
program for qualified property in 1992. CUV property is assessed
at 40 percent of the current-use value. That can be considerably
less than property assessed at 40 percent of fair market
value.

This favorable tax treatment is designed to protect property
owners from being pressured by the property tax burden to convert
their land from agricultural or forest use to residential or
commercial use.

CUV Requirements

To distinguish CUV from fair market values, Georgia law requires
the CUV to be:

• Determined by a formula which considers income potential
  based on soil productivity and market sales for different regions
  in the state.




• Calculated by the Georgia Department of Revenue. The DOR, in
  turn, annually distributes a table of values to each county in
  the state.

CUV Property Classes

Three different classes of property can qualify for
conservation-use valuations:

• Agricultural and forest property. CUVs for these
  properties are calculated annually by the DOR for farm lands and
  woodlands and distributed to the county tax assessors.




• Environmentally sensitive property. CUVs for
  environmentally sensitive CUV properties are determined by using
  the forest table of values. Local assessors will take the forest
  property description for the lowest productivity class and use
  the same value.




• Residential transitional. This class is unique. The
  CUV is determined by the local tax assessors. The primary goal of
  valuing residential transitional properties is to remove the
  influence of location and development from the value.

10-Year Covenant

In return for the favorable tax treatment, the property owner
must keep the land undeveloped in a qualifying use for 10 years.
Owners who breach their CUV covenant must pay back twice the
savings they have received.

Applications for CUV assessment must be filed with the county
board of tax assessors on or before the last day for filing ad
valorem tax returns in the county. The last day is April 1 in
most Georgia counties.

Specially trained staff appraisers of the Georgia
Property Tax Division set CUVs after consulting with the
Georgia Department of
Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics
Service, Forestry
Commission, Department
of Natural Resources and Cooperative Extension
Service.

Setting CUV Values

They set the values by a statutory design that takes mostly into
account the ability of the soil to grow certain agricultural
commodities. But the design also factors in the typical selling
price when lands are sold from farmer to farmer and not from
farmer to developer.

If you want to know if your Georgia property qualifies for CUV,
contact your county tax assessor now for the sign-up period that
opened Jan. 1.

The University of Georgia
Extension Service office in your
county is a good source of information. Further property tax
information is available on-line through the UGA Warnell School of Forest
Resources. Look for “Forest Economics and Taxes” in the “Information Library” section under “Service and
Outreach.”

Or, visit the Georgia DOR’s Web site (www2.state.ga.us/departments/dor/ptd/adm/taxguide/
rights.html).