Forsyth County tax troubles draw attention amid assessment notice errors

Forsyth County property owners received 2025 Annual Notice of Assessment letters with incorrect tax estimates because some county millage rates were missing from the notices, while the underlying property valuations remained correct. The county said it would mail corrected notices once the error was fixed, adding another layer of confusion to a tax issue that drew fresh attention after Chris Mora discussed Forsyth County on The Georgia Show.

The Forsyth County Board of Assessors said the assessment notice is informational and is not a tax bill. Property owners have 45 days from the notice date to appeal the property value listed on the notice, and the county said real property assessment notices were mailed beginning June 17, 2025, with personal property notices following on June 27. The mistake was tied to administration, not to the appraised value itself: missing millage rates meant the estimate on the notice did not reflect the full local tax picture.

State law also changed what residents saw on those notices. Georgia House Bill 581 and House Bill 92 altered the assessment format in 2025, replacing property tax estimates with an Estimated Rollback Rate. That change made the notices more technical just as Forsyth County was trying to explain why the figures on the page did not match what many homeowners expected to pay.

The eventual millage decisions showed why the issue mattered. Forsyth County commissioners adopted 2025 millage rates on August 7, 2025, after the Forsyth County Board of Education adopted its rates on July 29, 2025. The county said the total millage rate was 24.522 mills, and County M&O property taxes would rise by a net 5.88% over the rollback millage rate because of growth in the tax digest. Homestead-exempted properties, however, would not see a County M&O property-tax increase and would see a net decrease from County Bond and Fire combined.

The stakes are especially high in a county that keeps growing fast. U.S. Census Bureau estimates put Forsyth County’s population at 280,096 on July 1, 2024, and 282,805 on July 1, 2025, up from 251,283 in the 2020 census. In 2023, the county also reported a Homeowners Tax Relief Grant that gave homesteaded property owners an $18,000 credit off assessed value for County M&O, school M&O and fire district portions of the tax bill. In a county where home values, exemptions and millage changes all affect what lands in the mailbox, the notice error became more than a paperwork problem.