Indiana

WE?RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

After a two weeks of taking it on the chin, Indiana’s township assessors are fighting back.  The assessors have been accused of making a $4 billion mistake in assessing the commercial and industrial property in Marion County.  However the assessors says the reassessment is wrong and will result in more commercial appeals and higher taxes for homeowners.

They argue the reassessment should have taken between 12 and 18 months but was only done in four.  They say exempt property such as hospitals and churches were included in the reassessment which led to artificially inflated assessments.  They also say apartments were improperly assessed.  In addition, the assessors argue agricultural property was assessed as commercial or industrial. 

The assessors say they been unfairly accused of making mistakes in the property tax assessments and the County assessors and state department of local government and finance also bears responsibility.  They argue the commercial and industrial reassessments are so fraught with mistakes that resulted in enormous property tax increases that it is likely that a vast majority of the commercial and industrial reassessments will be appealed which, if successful, will result in increases for residential taxpayers and potentially wipe out any reductions in their tax bills.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on March 11, 2008 (boomark / email).