Taxpayers Push For Property Tax Overhaul Or Elimination

INDIANAPOLIS -- Taxpayers and local officials told Indiana lawmakers during a meeting Monday that the state's property tax system is broken and needs either an overhaul or elimination, 6News' Norman Cox reported.

Hundreds of people attended the public property tax hearing -- the first of several planned by the Commission on State Tax and Finance Policy -- at the Government Center South on Monday morning.

The commission, headed by state Sen. Luke Kenley and made up of Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate, is looking at the causes of property tax increases and is in search of short and long-term solutions.

Homeowners, especially seniors and the disabled, said they are being taxed out of their homes, and landlords said tax increases are so exorbitant that tenants will be unable to pay rent increases.

"My taxes this year, on average, went up 46.83 percent," said Steve Rasmussen, a landlord. "I cannot pass this on to my tenants. In the 25 years that I've been in the real estate business, I've never had as much problem with people paying their rent as they do today."

Taxes on homeowners are expected to increase by 24 percent on average statewide this year, but many taxpayers, including those in parts of Marion County, face bills that have spiked much higher. Several factors are driving up bills in many parts of the state, including trending -- a new system that uses formulas to estimate how much property values have increased since 1999, the base year for the last reassessment.

But many people who attended Monday's meeting said the system was simply broken, and this year's bills were unacceptable.

Local and state officials were invited to attend, along with community members. Before the meeting, Beech Grove Mayor Joe Wright said the issue is complicated.

"There's two ways you offset property taxes. One is by taking local option income tax, which is income based, which is a more fair system, and sales tax, which is a consumption-based system," Wright said. "You replace property tax dollars with those tax dollars so that you can continue to provide good public safety."

Many speakers said they want government entities and schools to drastically cut spending and to give seniors a break.

John Price, an attorney representing a group of homeowners who filed a lawsuit claiming the latest round of reassessment was done unfairly, said the current tax situation amounts to "geriatric cleansing" because older people will be forced out of their neighborhoods, perhaps out of state.