"The Official Portrait of Miss InDiana"

"The Official Portrait of Miss InDiana"
aka "Miss Victory"

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Citizen writes to the Indy Star: Declares property tax caps are bad policy

Why do people think the personal property tax cap is a great idea? Why are our legislators working so hard on this?

This tax cap will be meaningless due to the fact that assessors can still raise the assessed value of your home and still get whatever dollars they want out of our pockets.Quantcast

My 18-year-old house has never had a reduced assessment since I have lived here. In fact, when everything says real home values are going down, my last assessment went up several thousand dollars. Yes, you can complain to the assessor, but since there is no law that says what or how your home is assessed, you are at your assessor's mercy.

Sure you can compare your house to others, but you can bet your bippy they went up also. I really have to say assessors value your homes with the towns', cities' and townships' budgets already in their hands.

As far as I'm concerned, legislators are wasting time trying to control soaring property taxes by putting a cap on the personal property tax percentage rate without closing the loopholes in the rest of the process.

I don't care what they do about personal property taxes; it is the most hated tax in Indiana there is. You don't hear a lot about sales tax, excise tax or county earned wage tax, but I don't think I have ever heard anyone ever say the tax on your home and property is a fair and good tax.

Paul McDonald

Cicero

3 comments:

M Theory said...

Heard someone today say that she would rather deal with the mafia than our government...at least the mob has a code of ethics and enforces it.

Anonymous said...

If you've followed the property tax issue you've likely heard of, or from, a very nice fellow named Aaron Smith & his organization watchdogindiana.org When it comes to the tax caps however, he's completely wrong & is unable to prove otherwise. I hereby, formally invite Mr. Smith to explain, in simple, bottom line, dollars & cents terms, how "caps" provide relief to taxpayers with a $50K & $100K home. For someone who knows what he's talking about, this should be an easy exercise. Further, I'd like him to explain how value opinions (not market value, but what they call assessments) factored or multiplied by 1.05-1.10 (5-10% "cap" on annual assessment, meaning in 10 yrs. the state can double its opinion of value on your property), and then, then categorically factor or multiply that number by 1.01 / 1.02 / 1.03, and call that "relief." Mr. Smith has joined the statehouse chorus, telling people that this is good public policy. So, "Cap" = Annual Value Opinion (X) 1.05-1.10 (X) 1.01 or 1.02 or 1.03 = taxpayer protection??? Ever see a commission or an annuity schedule?

Anonymous said...

"In biblical law, there is no property tax, which means a basic and inalienable social security in the family and in property. The security of a man in his property, and in his inheritance, means a stability in the social order which is productive of progress." - R. J. Rushdoony

If God didn't have one, neither should we. Can the property tax!

Kurt