Indiana Property Tax System Under Fire: Assessors Criticized as Rising Home Values Drive Higher Taxes

I was in elected office, including the largest municipal property tax rate reduction in the history of the state of Indiana, and I’m so proud of that. And because you own your home, the home is yours, you bought it, not the government. And it just enrages me that through property taxes the government has a forever lien on your home. Think about that, the government always has some tie to your house like the government does. If you own stock in Walmart, government doesn’t always have ties to your stock, the government doesn’t tax you every year on the stock if you’re not capitalizing on it, if you’re not making money on it. And yet with property taxes every year you have to pay. And by the way it’s whatever the government says with really no recourse whatsoever other than you can appeal it, you can ask them hey did you make a mistake, but at the end of the day if the Property Tax Appeals Board or the county assessor’s office doesn’t side with you you’re screwed. And if you don’t pay it you can lose your home. And that’s wrong, it’s horribly wrong, and it is just insane to me that somebody can live in a house for 40 or for 50 years, be a stable part of their community, be a positive influence on their community, keep their house looking nice, keep their house maintained, keep the weeds cut, keep the grass cut, and all they get is punished every single year. While some person who may live in a house for five years cash out, make money and leave. And when I say leave now I’m not even talking about leaving the street or leaving the town, they can leave the state, they make a bunch of money and their little parting gift to you is oh your taxes went up. Well I sold my house for more, your taxes went up. It’s wrong. It’s disgusting.

Why Indiana’s Property Tax System Is Frustrating Homeowners

And I have fought and fought and fought on this, and one of the people that I realized as I had this little interaction with over the weekend that I’ve really given a free pass to are the county assessors. Look I’ve been following Indiana politics and government pretty close now for about 20 years. I got to thinking on Friday, I posted this, in my 20 years of following this and really the property tax rebellion of 2007 is when I really started paying attention. I was a college kid at the time, and I remember reading in the Star and the IBJ and all these places about the property tax rallies that started taking place in 2007. And I remember seeing these people and I remember going what’s that all about, what’s going on, like I didn’t have any idea what was going on locally. I thought I was doing my part because I was voting for the Republicans, hey I’m doing my part. And it was watching these people come out in 2007 on the property tax rebellion across the state of Indiana, a lot of it was here in the city of Indianapolis, but I remember seeing those people going, you know what they’re right, why does the government have some forever lien on somebody’s home? Why is somebody indebted to the government for something the government didn’t have anything to do with them purchasing or paying off? Why can a local government just arbitrarily say your house is worth whatever and now you have to pay it? And that is really where I began paying attention to government here in Indiana, my passion, what would become a lifelong passion about local government really started.

How Property Assessments Increase Taxes Without Home Sales

And so going all the way back almost 20 years now I began thinking to myself, I thought I never remember any sort of organized effort from our county assessors to push back on this horribly rotten system, the system is flawed beyond words. You don’t make any money off your house, you don’t sell your house, you don’t capitalize on your house, yet you get taxed on it and you get taxed more on it every year if some person does make money. Can you imagine if you own stock in Tesla and you’re like hey I’m holding, it’s part of my portfolio. I’m holding Tesla and Tesla goes up and Tesla goes down, but your neighbor he decides he’s also in on Tesla, and so he sells his Tesla stock, he makes his money. Okay tax that person. I don’t have an issue with that, but then you get punished, you get taxed based on him selling his Tesla stock when you didn’t sell yours. It’s insane. It’s absolutely insane. But that’s how we do property taxes in Indiana. When you get your bill they tax on what I call, I don’t know the exact word they use, but properties on mine there’s a little QR code and they’ll tell you what properties they went off, what sales took place on your home that they judged what your property taxes should be. But I didn’t sell my home, doesn’t matter. And in the almost 20 years I’ve been following this I never remember an organized effort from the assessors who are in charge of implementing this system in some sort of loud unified voice going to the statehouse, having events, anything saying the system is crap. Now a couple years ago on the old radio show we had the Tippecanoe County Assessor who came on and said the system’s crap, appeal your assessment. He basically said not that I don’t know what I’m doing, but I don’t know what I’m doing right because the system is so screwy nobody really knows, so appeal it. He was begging people to appeal the assessments. But other than a couple of individuals here or there I never remember our county assessors in any sort of vocal unified voice standing up for us. And I said why do I keep giving them a free pass. If you call your county assessor and appeal your property tax bill there’s a good chance privately they’ll tell you hey it’s kind of a rotten system, yeah this is pretty screwed up, hey we wish it were different. I have had informal appeals on my property taxes for the last four or five years, a couple times the assessment was way off, and to those people’s credit they fixed it, but they wouldn’t have if I didn’t call. Can you imagine a tax system where your stock gets taxed wrong? Like the other guy sells his stock, not only do you get taxed for it but the government screws up the formula? Like that’s the way our property tax system works. You’ve got to prove they screwed up, you’ve got to take your time, your effort to prove they screwed up. Now the assessors, they’re overworked and understaffed, there’s going to be huge amounts of mistakes, but this system has been so bastardized there’s no way it can be implemented properly, you can’t even implement the screwed up system properly.

Lack of Action From County Assessors Raises Accountability Questions

And so I began thinking to myself why do I give the assessors a free pass on this? If they really believe the things that they’ll tell you on the phone about how screwed up the system is, about how wrong the system is, about how hard to monitor or implement the system is, why aren’t they speaking up? why aren’t they speaking out? I’m seeing people, like I told you guys, my assessment went up a little bit over $12,000 this year, I’m not selling my home, I have no plans to sell my home, I’m not going to make any money off of my home, I’m losing money being in my home. Welcome to Brownsburg, welcome to the community, welcome to Greenwood, welcome to Avon, welcome to Fishers, you’re going to get taxed more every year for being a stable member of society. And yet my tax bill is probably going to go up about $120 next year. Did my government get $120 better? I can assure you living in Brownsburg it did not, I can assure you it didn’t.

Growing Anger as Tax Bills Rise Despite No Improvement in Services

But I’ll pay $120 more and then I’m mad about that. But then I see somebody got a $50,000 assessment increase, which means their property tax bill is going to go up $500, that’s insane. I have a friend who lives in Zionsville who said his assessment went up $50,000. So he’s going to pay $500 more in property taxes, which will wipe out the $300 decrease that he got. And so I posted this, I said I’m done giving the assessors a free pass. I’m done saying it’s okay that you just go well it’s a horrible system, I’m sorry but we have to do what the state says, I’m done with that. I didn’t say anybody was a bad person, I didn’t say that they were being malicious, I didn’t say they were out to screw everybody, I just said they’re okay with the system. Those are the only two options, if you’re not doing anything about it and you’re an elected official and you have a voice and you have power, and if you’re the assessor you’re causing the property tax increase. And so I post this thing and this woman who works in the assessor’s office just goes ballistic on me on Facebook. I said lady you clearly know enough about me to know getting lippy on social media is the wrong place, why don’t you fight for us the way you’re fighting at me on Facebook instead of as a person who claims to work in an assessor’s office? Instead of getting mad at the guy for pointing out the obvious, maybe do some self reflection and go he’s right and we do need to be more vocal about this, we do need to organize for the people. You’re mad at me for pointing it out, that shows exactly what I’ve been saying, which is the assessor’s offices, by and large, they’re okay with the system. If you’re more mad at the guy for pointing out what’s going on rather than the crummy system itself, that tells you everything you need to know. And how about you take that passion and direct it to 200 West Washington Street? That’s the Indiana Statehouse, and use that energy to get the people who wrote this system out of office? Because until the assessment system that we operate on is burned to the ground nothing is going to change. Nothing is going to get any better. It is ridiculous beyond words that you are taxed based on what some other person sold his or her house for, it cannot continue. And if you’re in an assessor’s office and you’re not speaking out, you are part of the problem and you’re okay with the system.