Lucy McBath Wasn’t A Resident Of Georgia During Election Despite Slamming Claims As ‘Baseless’
Democratic Georgia Rep. Lucy McBath was not a permanent Georgia resident when she ran for Congress in 2018, according to a report published Monday.
Tax documents uncovered by The Washington Free Beacon reveal that Cobb County, Georgia, does not recognize the freshman congresswoman’s home as her permanent residence, and consequently, the county has revoked the homestead exemptions her family previously received.
McBath acknowledged during her campaign that she decided to run for Georgia’s sixth district while she was still living in Tennessee. Her Republican challenger, former Georgia Rep. Karen Handel, questioned how McBath and her husband, a permanent resident of Tennessee, were able to write off Cobb County taxes using the homestead exception, which allows permanent county residents to lower their property tax liability.
“Now y’all, I’m just a former county commission chairman,” Handel said during the campaign. “But I thought taking a homestead exemption here while claiming permanent residency there was a pretty big no-no.”
While McBath called the accusation “baseless,” the Cobb County tax commissioner is requiring the McBaths to pay back taxes for the past three years. A tax audit determined that the family was misusing the homestead exemption from 2015 though 2018 since they never qualified for it.
McBath and her husband have been writing off the homestead exemption since 2000, however, Cobb County only audits tax filings for the prior three years, so it is not clear if she has been misusing the exemption since then.
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