As homeowners across Guilford County open their 2026 revaluation notices and see sharply higher home values, state lawmakers in Raleigh are taking a closer look at whether North Carolina’s property tax relief system needs an overhaul.
A bill filed in the North Carolina General Assembly – House Bill 432 in the 2025-26 session – directs the legislature’s Revenue Laws Study Committee to examine possible expansions to existing property tax relief programs for elderly and disabled homeowners and disabled veterans.
While the bill doesn’t immediately change the law, it outlines ideas that, if ultimately adopted, could directly affect homeowners in Guilford County, where many residential properties are showing significant increases compared to the last revaluation. It would of course affect the other 99 counties as well.
In some neighborhoods, assessed values appear to be up by 40 percent or more.
Under state law, counties must calculate a revenue-neutral tax rate after a revaluation – a rate that would generate roughly the same total revenue as the previous year, excluding growth.
However, commissioners aren’t required to adopt that rate. If they leave the current rate in place, higher values would translate into higher tax bills.
County officials have previously estimated that leaving the rate unchanged after revaluation could generate $175 million in additional annual revenue countywide.
That possibility has many homeowners concerned, particularly retirees on fixed incomes who may have seen their home’s paper value rise dramatically while their income has not.
House Bill 432 directs lawmakers to study raising income limits for senior and disabled homeowner exclusions, increasing the amount of value that can be excluded from taxation and potentially creating a cap that would limit annual increases in a home’s taxable value for qualifying primary residences.
The measure also calls for examining expanded deferral options that would allow certain homeowners to postpone part of their tax bill until the property is sold, as well as the possibility of allowing certain property tax benefits to follow a homeowner who moves within the state.
None of those ideas are yet law: The bill calls for a study and recommendations.
But the timing is notable.
Guilford County commissioners will have to decide later this year whether to adopt a revenue-neutral rate, a partial rollback or something closer to the current rate. What happens in Raleigh could shape how much flexibility counties ultimately have and how much relief homeowners see.
Commissioner Pat Tillman is part of an effort to make the tax rate in Guilford County revenue neutral; however, others on the board – like Chairman Skip Alston and Vice Chair Carlvena Foster – point to the county’s massive school bond debt and the need to increase services for an increasing number of county residents.
Property taxes remain the primary source of funding for counties across the state, supporting schools, law enforcement, social services and other essential functions. Any statewide expansion of exclusions or caps would have budget implications for local governments.
For homeowners watching their assessed values climb sharply ahead of the 2026 tax year, the debate in Raleigh may offer some hope – or at least signal that state leaders are aware of the pressure building across North Carolina.
For now, the bill begins as a study. For Guilford County residents facing higher assessments, it’s a study that could matter a great deal.
In 2022, the county budget was about $671 million. After the last evaluation in 2023, the county budget ballooned to $783 million. Rather than adopting the revenue neutral rate of 59.54 cents, they left it at 73.05 cents and took the whole $112 million.
If the new revenue estimates I’ve read about are correct, that means the new revenue neutral rate is probably around 61 or 62 cents.
That would still be higher than Forsyth (53 cents), Alamance (49 cents), Durham (55 cents) Wake (52 cents) Rockingham (58 cents). If they can manage with less????
“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”
“Commissioner Pat Tillman is part of an effort to make the tax rate in Guilford County revenue neutral; however, others on the board – like Chairman Skip Alston and Vice Chair Carlvena Foster – point to the county’s massive school bond debt and the need to increase services for an increasing number of county residents.”
Good for Pat. Thanks for at least trying. As for Skip the Omnipotent, his Ygor henchman Carlvena Foster, and the rest of his sycophants on the Board of Commissars, how dare you try to use children’s education as an excuse along with “the need to increase services for an increasing number of county residents.” Don’t you mean the number of homeless and illegal aliens that have been flocking to Greensboro? You know, the ones that have prompted Downtown to slowly start degrading? Don’t you mean all the taxpayer money that is given to Skip’s pet (read vote buying) NPOs every year?
“Any statewide expansion of exclusions or caps would have budget implications for local governments.” You should add that if/when that happens they will start experiencing what their constituents have to face, that being serious cuts in their personal lives. I guess that would mean all those tax money eating boards, commissions and other feel good payback projects the Commissars and City High Council members create would have to go. I guess that would mean Skip’s dream of a new Palace…I mean “a consolidated government complex in downtown Greensboro. will have to go to a back burner for a while.
Obviously I like to use existing quotes and references and I will close with this one…” I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” Who’s with me?
Thank you for letting us know about “Skip’s palace!”
Let me know where and when there are going to be any demonstrations outside Guilford County commissioners offices.
On a national level, we are witnessing Illan Omar’s 250,000 million fraud scheme in Minnesota supported by its governor, This should be the handwriting on the wall.
In Guilford County taxpayer residents need to get some help from our state auditor and state legislators.
Importantly, homes previously valued at 250,000 could see an increase to 5,200.00 a year.
As I understand it, we could ask the NC Legislators to cap the total tax revenue local governments can collect from existing properties—Levy Limits. This would höre a revenue neutral tax rate, or we could force local officials to seek voter approval for tax increases.
Another alternative, we could ask the State Legislators to increase Homestead exemptions.
Finally, the state legislators set the framework, our Local officials currently have the authority to to set final rates. The answer appears to be to initiate state intervention to restrict the revenue collected.
This quote also applies to our responsibility in making local governments accountable: No Man”s Life, Liberty, or Property are safe while the Legislature is in session….
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This is just a cash grab – pure extortion. Even the Mafia are more reasonable when they shake you down. They realize they can’t demand more money from you when you don’t have any more.
Unrealized paper profits – that are alleged by those who stand to gain from them – are as flimsy a pretext as you’ll ever see for this mugging of homeowners.
The Parasitic Sector disgusts me. Why don’t y’all get real jobs, instead of using coercive government power to steal from us all? Do you have no shame? Is there no limit to your greed?
There ought to be a law………………………………………………………………………………………….
Guess who makes the laws?
lawyers ? on payrolls ?
Another possibility that no one seems to be considering is a credit for home improvements. Such a credit would help maintain the tax base and also improve the lives of retirees who want to stay in their homes. Instead of paying a higher tax, these owners would receive a credit for property repairs and improvements.
$175,000,000 divided by 558,816 (estimated Guilford population 2024) equals $313.16. That’s $313.16 for every man, woman, and child.
Revenueneutral,
Does that mean I can write the Commissars a check for that amount and add a note to p**s off and leave me alone?
Hate to see it for GC property owners. Miss me yet?
‘miss me’, r u unmarried female ?
~220,000 households in GC so an additional 775 per household. Will say again, glad I left.
See, that’s the problem Chris. You love liberal policies, which always involve spending other people’s money. Now, like a virus, you have fled this county but took your liberal thinking with you to spread to wherever you live currently. So, you’ll try to vote in the same mentality come election time and eventually where you live now will be just like the place you fled.
Same with the exodus from NY and California. Libs flee because of policy, but don’t change their thinking and then vote those same types of people back into office in the place they fled to. So, so, so dumb.
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So true.
Whenever I meet other immigrants from the UK I am always dismayed that they adhere to the kind of statist/socialist policies that have ruined our dear old country.
Britain is finished.
Thirty-six years of Leftist policy imposition have made it a squalid, impoverished, irrelevant totalitarian state. The rot began on the day the “Conservatives” kicked Margaret Thatcher our of Downing Street.
And now everything is past the point of no return. The cancer is terminal.
according to bbc science focus mag the most popular baby names in 2024 are olivia & muhammed in great britain
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Yes, the British people have been overwhelmed by foreigners who are united, and determined to impose their values and “culture” on the UK. I put culture in quotation marks because it requires Female Genital Mutilation, the killing of homosexuals, the subjugation of women, and the persecution of people who dare to disagree (“infidels”).
British politicians have made it their business to betray the British people, and destroy a once great, and once wonderful country.
Their allegiance is to the W.E.F. Globalists and other transnational organizations.
Phil Berger is planning to propose that re-evaluations be postponed until next year. While this is an idea that could be supported, I doubt it will go anywhere. And having a suspicious nature about political maneuvering, it is easily believed that this is Berger’s attempt at a political ploy to win the Republican 26th District primary for the NC Senate.
For those who learned US history, the battle cry for the Spanish American War was “Remember the Main.” For Phil Berger’s campaign it is “Remember Summerfield.”
Summerfield was SCREWED by the NC legislature. If one developer can have his way and tell elected officials in Raleigh what he wants, other developers can do the same elsewhere anytime they want and cite what happened in Summerfield as a precedent. It has to be one of the worst actions taken by the legislature. This action only proves that representatives of both parties can be STUPID. NO SURPRISE THERE!
As horrible an action as this was, there is NO WAY EVER that I could vote for any democrat for any office from dog catcher to school board or county commissioner to any office in NC or any national office. The DNA of dems is to tax and spend, then tax and spend again and again. Republicans are not always right, but at least they are correct the vast majority of the time. dems only want to take your money and make citizens share croppers who work the land and pay almost all of their money to the government.
I see Mr. Berger came up two votes short of a mandate
All this fear mongering about school debt goes on as the school attendance continues to drop.
Skip and his minions know they will be successful with their next budget because Guilford County voters don’t care enough to vote to stop them. You can’t fix stupid.
If they do raise taxes. I suggest everyone only send in $5.00 a month for your tax. They can’t say anything to you as long as you are attempting to pay. I haven’t read anywhere where you have to pay your bill all at one time.
Brilliant !