Services:

The Morgan County Property Assessor’s office maintains a large amount of public information on local properties in order to correctly classify and assess them for tax purposes. We estimate the value of each parcel of real property (with the general exception of schools, churches and charities) in the county. Real property is the combination of land and any structures on it. Every vacant lot, apartment complex, and home has a value; the assessor estimates that value based on the current real estate. The assessor’s staff is constantly reviewing properties throughout the county and adding or deleting features that add to or take away value. This ensures an accurate assessment for everyone. The assessor also creates value assessments for new construction and determines whether any reassessment is in order when a property changes ownership.

The assessor compiles all of these property values into an assessment roll, which is a master list of the value of all the real property in a given county or jurisdiction. The value estimates created by assessors take a number of factors into account, in addition to market values. Some of the services we provide are listed below:

Property Maps
Application for Exemption
Greenbelt Application
General Property Information
Required Building Permits

Personal Property:

Tangible Personal Property is filed by “(a) All partnerships, corporations, other business associations not issuing stock and individuals operating for profit as a business or profession, including manufacturers, except those whose property is entirely assessable by the comptroller of the treasury” per Tennessee Code Annotated (TCA) 67-5-903. The ten groups, and the leasing and   nonstandard sections of the tangible personal property schedule and the   depreciation for these groups are shown in TCA 67-5-903. The property owner should report the cost of acquiring the property on the line for the year in   which the property was bought. The cost includes but is not limited to shipping, insurance to ship, sales tax, and any other cost to get the property on site and operational.

The tangible personal property schedules are mailed by February 1 by the county assessor to each business operating in the county. The schedules are to   be completed and returned by the business owner or the business owner’s representative by March 1 to the county assessor. If the business owner does not receive a schedule (s)he should call the local assessor’s office for a schedule. All businesses that do not return a schedule will be force assessed by the county assessor’s office.

If the business owner files a schedule and determines later that an error occurred on the schedule, the business owner will have until September 1 the following year to amend the schedule. Forced assessments do not have the right of amendment.

Each May the property owner who has a forced assessment and those whose assessments changed in value will receive an assessment change notice. This value should be thirty percent of the depreciated value filed on the schedule in March. If you do not agree with this value you may appeal to the county board   that meets the first Monday in June. The tax bills generated from the assessments will be mailed each fall.

Government Owned Property:

U.S. Government                        7,094.74 acres (includes parks)

State of Tennessee                     24,013.45 acres (inlcudes parks)

Big South Fork                           1,155.5 acres

Obed                                             1,892.22 acres

University of Tennessee           1,547 acres

TN Wildlife Mgt. Area              34,409.14 acres

Nature Conservancy                 191.7 acres

Morgan County                          641.76 acres (includes schools, fire departments, etc…)

There are approximately 336,600 acres in Morgan County. Of that amount, 21% is tax exempt.