South Carolina state law requires every county to reassess all properties within their jurisdiction every five (5) years. Therefore, in September residents received reassessment notices from the York County Assessor. The York County Assessor is charged, by SC law, with classifying real property for assessment purposes.
Reassessment is the process of revaluing all the property in the county to assign new values for tax purposes. The purpose is to equalize the tax burden so that every property owner pays in proportion to their assessment (value). Therefore, taxes collected are distributed more fairly among all property owners.
Reassessment was not created to raise taxes. However, property values are likely to increase since York County’s last reassessment was implemented in 2015, of which most of those values were based on sales from 2013 and 2014. The 2020 reassessment program values were based on sales from 2018 and 2019. The values were not impacted by COVID-19, the Carolina Panthers development, large companies that relocated to York County in 2020, or any other type of 2020 economic development initiatives/projects.
Additionally, because of the increase in values during a reassessment year, state law requires that local governments reduce the millage rate to what is called a rollback millage. In September, York County Council voted to roll back the millage to 87.1 in order to assist residents with the burden of any property value increases.
To find more information about the York County 2020 Reassessment Program, please visit https://www.yorkcountygov.com/DocumentCenter/View/4628/2020-Reassessment-Letter---Guide or call the York County Assessor’s Office at (803) 684-8526.