Dear Editor, My legislative colleague, Senator Patricia Miller, recently wrote a column titled, "Moving away from property taxes will take time." Senator Miller and I have worked together on various issues and tend to agree on many of them. However, when it comes to the issue of Indiana's broken property tax system, our views differ ever so slightly. While we both continue to work toward permanent property tax relief for Hoosiers, I believe the only way to "move away" from property taxes is to completely overhaul the system and terminate property taxes altogether. As Senator Miller stated, the budget passed by the General Assembly provides $550 million in property tax relief for Hoosier homeowners. Unfortunately, this property tax relief plan is too little too late. The "relief" involves a rebate provision that will leave many Hoosier property owners forced to pay property tax increases of nearly 24 percent on average and then waiting several months for a rebate check in the mail that will refund part of their money. Those with escrowed mortgages will see an increase in their escrow payments as a result of the initial property tax increase. In addition, people who own one or two extra properties for rental purposes will not receive any exemptions or the rebate check; they will just get stuck with higher property taxes. As you can imagine, the rebate plan doesn't only sound like a disaster, it will most likely turn out to be one. The Department of Local Government Finance must first certify the rebate percentages and amounts for each county. The Department of Revenue must then distribute these certified amounts to each county treasurer. The county auditor will then determine the exact rebate amount for each homestead. These rebates will then be mailed or electronically transferred to each homeowner, presumably by the end of the year. In my opinion, this is a complicated process that places a great burden on our county auditors and will be very expensive to execute, making it an added expense to taxpayers. For as many years as we've spent debating a solution to Indiana's broken property tax system, it is hard to believe that the simplest solution has been ignored: fully eliminate property taxes. Over the past few years, I have been working on legislation that would permanently and constitutionally repeal property taxes in the state. Some opponents of the legislation have claimed that repealing property taxes would cause sales tax increases of 6 to 8 percent and income tax increases of 4 to 5 percent. These are all erroneous figures based on speculation. After a great deal of research with the Legislative Services Agency and other economic specialists, we have come up with a repeal program that would limit sales tax increases to 2 percent and income tax increases to 1 percent, only after property taxes are repealed. This year, Senator Tom Weatherwax carried the repeal legislation in the Senate. It received a hearing, but unfortunately, a vote was not taken, even though 38 other legislators had signed on to the legislation. I will continue to reintroduce the repeal legislation as long as it takes for it to become a reality. Homeowners should be able fully own their homes without fearing that they will someday lose them to high property tax bills. This is wrong. I intend to push my legislative colleagues to think outside the box and find other sources of revenue so that we can actually move away from our reliance on property taxes. Sincerely, Representative Woody Burton |
