Forsyth County weighs new sales tax plan after TSPLOST rejection

Forsyth County commissioners are again weighing a penny sales tax, and the choice comes down to a question residents feel at checkout: would the county use new revenue to cut property taxes for homeowners, or to pay for transportation and other projects?

At a May 12 work session, commissioners discussed options after the county’s earlier transportation tax plan failed at the ballot box. One idea getting more attention is the Local Homestead Option Sales Tax, a one-penny levy that would be used to provide property-tax relief for homeowners. That is a very different pitch from the Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, or TSPLOST, which would send sales-tax dollars to roads and other transportation work.

Commissioner Laura Semanson raised the political risk of asking voters for yet another penny tax. Her concern was straightforward: the burden adds up, and support may not be there if county residents feel they are being asked to pay more without a clear, immediate payoff. That argument lands in a county where households are already sorting through tax bills tied to rapid growth, rising home values and repeated referendum campaigns.

The county’s 2022 TSPLOST materials help explain why the issue keeps resurfacing. Forsyth County approved the referendum resolution on Aug. 4, 2022, for the Nov. 8, 2022, ballot. The project list attached to that plan was estimated to cost more than $878 million, while the tax itself was projected to generate about $250 million in transportation revenue over five years. The Georgia Department of Revenue says TSPLOST is simply the transportation version of the local option sales tax, and several different TSPLOSTs are already in place across Georgia.

Forsyth County’s own materials say the county grew 39% in the last decade and is projected to double in the next 30 years. U.S. Census Bureau estimates put the population at 282,805 on July 1, 2025, up from 280,096 a year earlier, and 12.5% higher than the 2020 census base. The same census estimates put the median value of owner-occupied housing at $550,400 and the median monthly owner cost with a mortgage at $2,525, numbers that give extra weight to any proposal framed as property-tax relief.

If commissioners move ahead later this year, the issue could reach a November ballot and force a countywide decision about who pays, what gets funded and whether a new sales tax eases the pressure on homeowners or simply shifts the bill around. The Board of Commissioners meets in work session twice a month on the second and fourth Tuesdays, and agendas and supporting documents are posted online the day of the meeting, giving residents a close look at what comes next.