State leaders united to urge local communities to raise taxes. They didn’t use those words, of course.
Referring to three local income taxes authorized by the General Assembly, two of which limit or reduce property taxes, Gov. Daniels, Senator Long, and Rep. Bauer said:
Local government has been given an unprecedented opportunity to cut property taxes in record amounts, and it must act today. We are encouraging all Hoosier citizens to contact their city and county councils and urge them to begin the process to cut their property taxes now.
Neat idea – let’s have local government officials take the heat for raising taxes. We won’t mention that part of it. We’ll just talk about “property tax cuts.” This dovetails nicely with Gov. Daniels’ habit of blaming the property tax increase on local government run amok, nevermind that this is not actually the case.
I’m not totally opposed to the idea of replacing some property taxes with income taxes — so long as the swap isn’t structured so lower income people end up footing more of the bill. But, I’m a little irritated at how shabbily local government is treated by the State. I know crap flows downhill and all, but there ought to be limits.
Would add the same type of comments as before–all communities are not equal in financial impact of local income (or sales, etc.) taxes. Consider Owen County with one of the five lowest per capita incomes in the state and few retail outlets. Plus add the factor of what long term impact if neighboring counties do something different that could further negatively impact the county—such as Owen raises taxes and Monroe does not. The better answer is state wide taxes—but then the blame would be on the governor and the legislature. Sooo.