FLOST: Who Pays, Who Benefits

The short version

Jan 1

Everyone starts paying the extra penny at the register. Relief doesn't show up until the fall 2027 tax bill.

1 in 4

Catoosa households rent. Not one gets a property tax cut.

1 in 11

Homeowners save nothing. Their county and city tax is already zero.

1 in 3

More than 1 in 3 Catoosa households will pay more at the register than they get back in property tax relief.

39¢

Of every relief dollar goes to the homes people own and live in.

$740K

A year to the 10 largest property owners, as much as 1,800 typical homeowners.

$2.7M

A year in relief goes to tax bills mailed outside of Georgia. That's about 1 of every 6 relief dollars.

22%

Of the relief goes to the top 1% of property owners. The bottom half, about 13,000 owners, split 18%.

Want to see what it means for your own household?

The measure

What happens and when

Starting January 1, 2027, every taxable purchase in Catoosa County costs one more cent per dollar. The sales tax goes from 7% to 8% for five years, through December 31, 2031.
The local tax on groceries goes up by a third, from 3% to 4%.
It hits groceries, eating out, gas (about 3 cents a gallon), your power and natural gas bills, parts of your phone bill, clothes, school supplies, household goods, pet food, and online orders delivered to a Catoosa address.
Everyone pays starting January 1. No one sees property tax relief until the tax bill mailed in fall 2027, and that first year's relief reflects only part of a year of collections.
FLOST does not touch the school tax, which is 68% of all property tax collected in Catoosa County.

Left out

About 1 in 4 Catoosa households rent, nearly 6,900 of them. Not one gets a property tax cut from FLOST. Any savings goes to the landlord, and nothing requires it to be passed on.
1 in 11 homeowners will save nothing, because their county and city tax bills are already zero. That is 1,229 homes.
1 in 5 homeowners will save less than $221 a year, about what a typical household will pay in FLOST. That is 2,918 homes.
About 1 in 7 homeowners will save less than $129 a year, less than even a lower-income household pays in FLOST. That is 2,050 homes.
Nearly 1,000 low-income senior homeowners already pay $0 in county property tax. FLOST can't cut a bill that's already zero.
Nearly 6 in 10 of Catoosa's fully disabled veteran homeowners and surviving spouses, 266 of 452, already pay $0 in county tax and get nothing from FLOST.
Half of Fort Oglethorpe homeowners, 888 of 1,795, already pay $0 in city tax, so they get nothing from Fort Oglethorpe's share of FLOST.
About 3 in 10 Catoosa households will pay the extra penny and get no property tax cut at all. Counting homeowners who save less than they'll pay, it's more than 1 in 3.

Top of the list

About 1 in 25 homeowners will save $1,000 or more a year. More than 8 in 10 of them live in homes worth $500,000 or more.
For homes worth over $750,000, 8 in 10 will save more than $1,000 a year.
The 10 largest property owners in the county will save about $740,000 a year, as much as 1,800 typical homeowners combined.
The top 100 property owners will save about $2.3 million a year, roughly $11.5 million over FLOST's five years.
Only about 4 of every 10 FLOST relief dollars, 39%, go to the homes people own and live in. The other 61% goes to rentals, vacant lots and second homes, stores and offices, factories, farmland and timber, and utilities.
About $2.7 million a year, about 1 of every 6 relief dollars, goes to tax bills mailed outside of Georgia.
The top 1% of property owners get 22% of the relief. The bottom half, about 13,000 owners, split 18%.
The single biggest winner is a utility: North Georgia EMC saves about $116,000 a year, while its customers pay the extra penny on their power bills.
Walmart, Costco, Lowe's and Home Depot together save about $162,000 a year: Walmart about $54,000, Costco about $45,000, Lowe's about $33,000 and Home Depot about $30,000.

Fine print

Savings figures include county and city property tax. City figures use each city's taxable values from county records.
Savings figures cover land and buildings only. Business equipment and inventory are not included, so the amounts shown for businesses are minimums.
Savings are estimates based on about $17 million a year in FLOST revenue, which is what a penny of sales tax actually brought in here in 2025. That works out to tax rate cuts of about 3.84 mills for the county, 1.98 for Ringgold and 3.12 for Fort Oglethorpe.
The senior count is based on county exemption codes. It counts homeowners whose codes give a full county exemption to seniors with household income under $20,000: L14, L23, L24, L24S and their Fort Oglethorpe equivalents.
Household totals are approximate. They combine Census renter counts with county parcel counts.
Five-year totals assume revenue stays about the same each year.
Household cost figures are in August 2026 prices: about $221 a year for a typical Catoosa household and about $129 for a lower-income household.

Sources

Catoosa County Board of Commissioners, FLOST resolution and ballot language, August 4, 2026
O.C.G.A. 48-8-109.30 through 48-8-109.42 (FLOST statute), and SB 33 (2026) on timing
Catoosa County parcel data, October 2026: home values, exemption codes and county, school and city taxable values; Catoosa County homestead exemption code list
Catoosa County Tax Commissioner, 2024 and 2025 Annual Reports (including exemption code definitions)
U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020-2024 (households, renters)
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey 2024, adjusted to August 2026 prices with the Consumer Price Index

Every rate, digest figure and formula behind these numbers is on the full reference page.

See what FLOST means for your own household, using your tax bill or your home's value.