TRANSFER TAX FORM PROCEDURES

I have great news for those of you who are frustrated with the antiquated transfer tax filing procedure: The Georgia Superior Court Clerk's Cooperative Authority (the "Authority") and the Department of Revenue ("DOR") recently met to discuss this very issue. These discussions led to a proposal for a new, stream-lined filing procedure.

 

Under the current system, the closing attorney and his or her staff must manually complete the small, green, multi-part Form PT61. This form is then filed with the Clerk along with the deed. The Clerk then manually distributes the appropriate parts of the form to the Tax Commissioner, the Assessors, and the Department of Audits. The Department of Audits enters the information from the Form PT61 into a data base which then serves as a source of data for users. This current procedure of typing a multi-part carbon half-sheet form is antiquated and therefore inefficient. A new on-line procedure would solve many of the problems of the current form.

 

Under the proposed system, the filer would access the transfer tax form through the Authority's web-site. The filer would be prompted to enter requested information on successive screens for seller's information, buyer's information, property information and then the actual tax information. The information requested would be substantially similar to the information requested on the current Form PT61. The system would calculate the appropriate tax amount automatically, and would even prompt the user for the various exemptions, if applicable. After the data is entered and the tax is calculated, the user would electronically submit the form to the Authority and then print the form. Both the printed form and the electronic version submitted to the Authority would contain a reference number in the upper right hand corner. The printed transfer tax form would be submitted to the Clerk when the deed is filed for recording. The Clerk would enter the reference number, which would match the electronic form already in the data base and this would "close the loop". Subsequently, instead of the Clerk having to manually deliver copies of the form to the various departments, these departments would have direct, immediate on-line access to the database.

 

An obvious question is, "What happens if the form is never filed?" Once the form is submitted electronically, it would remain in the database at the Authority. After a certain amount of time (yet to be determined) if a printed form has not been filed, the system would purge the electronic form and its reference number. Therefore electronic forms would not remain in the database indefinitely. Additionally, if changes need to be made to a form before filing, the filer would simply create a second form and the first form would eventually be purged as described above.

 

A group of Clerks reviewed a prototype of this system and their reactions were positive. In addition, the Authority sought the participation and review of several members of the Real Property Law Section, who also approved of the on-line system. The DOR and the Authority met again at the end of December, 2003 and are ready to move forward to implement this new system. The intent is to have the on-line system running on May 1, 2004 and continue in a transition period until December 31, 2004. During this transition period, the Clerks would accept either the on-line procedure or the current manual Form PT61. Beginning January 1, 2005, only the on-line system would be used.

 

The Authority and the DOR are optimistic that this proposed system will alleviate the inefficiencies generated by the current procedure. As with any new system, there will be an adjustment period where unforseen glitches will be addressed. However, the proposal appears to be a step in the right direction.