Fulton County has beaten the city of Atlanta in a battle over which government has the right to tax valuable industrial park land, but the war may not be over—and millions of dollars could ultimately be at stake.
The Georgia Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion Monday saying the city of Atlanta was never on solid legal ground in seeking a declaratory judgment on its right to annex land that was part of the Fulton County Industrial District tax zone. Justice Keith Blackwell wrote that the trial court—Fulton County Superior Court Judge Gail Tusan—should have dismissed the city’s lawsuit. Instead, Tusan granted the city’s request to declare void the state legislation that created the county’s industrial tax zone in 1979. The high court’s decision returns the case to Tusan for dismissal.
