Arthur Ferdinand has been Fulton County tax commissioner since 1997. His bid for another four-year term is challenged by Duvwon Robinson in the May 21 Democratic primary.
Ferdinand touts his office’s efficiency, saying he routinely collects more than 99% of taxes due. The tax commissioner’s office has more than 30 audits each year, and none has found fault with his operations, Ferdinand said.
Robinson criticizes Ferdinand’s as overpaid — he collected nearly $600,000 in income last year — and blames him for people losing their homes to private investment firms.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution sent questions to both Ferdinand and Robinson. Ferdinand answered them in a phone interview. Robinson did not answer questions directly, instead emailing links to stories critical of Ferdinand, including a 2017 AJC story on South Fulton not wanting to pay Ferdinand $1 per parcel for property tax collection that the commissioner keeps as personal income.
State law allows tax commissioners to keep charges to cities as personal income, a practice Ferdinand has done for years.
A 2019 AJC investigation found that no public official has profited more from the fee system than Ferdinand, and that year he made more than the president of the United States and nearly three times more than the governor.
“What you should write is 27 years of Arthur is enough and there’s a new challenger who seeks to unseat him,” Robinson wrote to the AJC. “To answer the only question relevant is I will not Accept a Dollar a Parcel” as personal income.
At a town hall April 30, Robinson called Ferdinand’s enhanced income “borderline criminal.”
In response, Ferdinand said he would be satisfied with his base pay if he was only collecting taxes for the county. But state law says if he also collects on behalf of cities, that “requires compensation,” Ferdinand said. State law does not, however, require tax commissioners to keep the charges. They could give staff bonuses, use it for office operations or donate it to the county’s general fund.
Ferdinand said his base pay is $245,045 a year, and that he gets $349,305 from Fulton’s cities for collecting their property taxes, for an annual total of $594,350.
“This is not secret,” he said.
Ferdinand defended getting $1 per parcel for collecting city taxes. Other tax commissioners statewide get some payment for that, he said.
“I do not know what other people get paid in the state, but I do know that I’m not the highest paid official in the state — government official,” Ferdinand said.
Robinson criticizes the sale of tax liens to InVesta Services. Ferdinand said InVesta Services is a national firm that buys liens on uncollected taxes in many states. About 400 buyers purchase liens in Fulton County, but InVesta Services is the biggest buyer, he said.
“And I don’t get paid by them, and I don’t own part of the corporation,” Ferdinand said.
At the town hall Robinson referred to an AJC report that private equity firms have bought tens of thousands of houses, mostly in minority neighborhoods, and turned them into rentals — driving up home prices area-wide. He blamed that partially on Ferdinand, though the story did not say those houses were bought at lien sales.
In 2023, about 1.5% of the tax digest was sold, Ferdinand said. Delinquent taxpayers get 30 days’ notice before a lien is put on their property, he said.
“No senior has lost their home because of me,” Ferdinand said, adding that he sets up tax payment plans for several hundred elderly homeowners every year. He doesn’t sell liens or foreclose on properties with senior homestead exemptions, he said.
Robinson has said he is an Atlanta native. Ferdinand, a former IBM executive, said he has lived in Georgia since 1987 with all but two years of that spent in Fulton County.
Robinson’s campaign Facebook page indicates he ran for Superior Court Clerk in 2016. He ran for Atlanta City Council in 2017 but was disqualified before the election, according to Ballotpedia.
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