Bill Clark/AP
In the months since she arrived on Capitol Hill as a first-term congresswoman from Georgia and the House’s first supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has stirred up her fair share of public controversy—being stripped of her committee assignments over hate-filled tweets, espousing COVID denialism, and, just this week chasing and shouting at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). But now a TV station in her home state has dug up paperwork pointing to a problem that is far more than a PR issue: that Greene and her husband seem to have been claiming a lucrative tax break on two houses in two different Georgia counties, in violation of the law.
Channel 2 Action News in Atlanta revealed last night that it had obtained paperwork through public records requests that showed Greene and her husband claiming what’s called a “homestead exemption” on two properties—one in Fulton Country and one in Floyd County, which is in the district that Greene now represents. The tax break lowers the amount of property tax homeowners must pay on their homes, but it can only be claimed for one house—the owners’ primary residence.
In the couple’s Floyd County application, Greene’s husband reportedly left blank a question that asked whether they had an active homestead exemption in another part of the state. Meanwhile, Fulton County confirmed to the TV network that the pair’s tax break on their home in that county was still active. “The property owners filed for homestead exemption in Fulton County in May of 2019 and it became effective for the 2020 tax year,” the Fulton County Board of Assessors told the network. “In this case, Fulton County will consult with Floyd County to confirm and determine in which county the exemption is not valid.”
Greene responded to the allegations by telling the network that the reporter on the story “needs to mind his own business instead of launching yet another pathetic attempt to smear me and my family.”
