House Bill 1007 – Property taxes. Reps. Kuzman and Bauer. Among other things, this bill transfers the authority to employ a professional appraiser to the county assessor alone, rather than jointly with the township assessors. (The current structure of the statute contemplating agreement by the county assessor and the township assessors has raised some issues lately in Tippecanoe County.) The bill requires a county assessor (outside of Marion County) to verify the accuracy and completeness of a real estate disclosure form before the form is filed with the auditor.
The bill creates a local government capital project property tax control board for the purpose of approving proposed bond issues and lease rental agreements for a political subdivision. Permits a county to impose an additional 1% County Adjusted Gross Income Tax or County Option Income Tax on individuals and corporations to provide property tax relief and additional revenue for taxing units in the city. Revenue not used for property tax relief must be used for public safety expenditures. Limits the flexibility that counties currently have with respect to using their economic development income tax revenues to certain specified purposes.
Freezes a county’s obligation to provide funding for child services at the lesser of its 2005 or 2007 level. The Department of Child Services is required to provide any additional money necessary. The budget agency is required to reimburse a county for child services expenditures in 2006 or 2007 that exceeded the contribution for such services in 2005.
Permits a taxing unit to impose a local judicial mandate levy to pay capital, financing, and operating costs incurred to comply with a court order.
Today, there are a number of hotly contested Amendments that appear to be failing primarily on party line votes. I browsed through a number of them, but couldn’t really get a sense of what the Amendments would have done if approved.
Updated 2/13/07 HB 1007 failed for lack of Constitutional majority, getting only 49 votes in favor versus 48 votes against. The three Representatives excused from voting were Reps. Behning, Pond, and Richardson. I don’t always recognize Republicans and Democrats by name, but I noticed that at least two Democrats, Rep. Dvorak and Rep. Fry, voted against the bill. I think Rep. Fry is from Mishawaka and Rep. Dvorak is from South Bend. I wonder if there was an aspect particular to that area of the state they found objectionable or if there were more general concerns. I think Rep. Fry in particular tends to be fairly close, politically, to Speaker Bauer; so I doubt the concerns, whatever they were, were trivial.
[tags]HB1007-2007, taxes[/tags]
Wow.
This is another terrible bill…
Raising taxes is not the answer. Local Governments need to hold the line on spending…
This tax will help ensure that new companies do NOT move to Indiana…
Did you know that the average Hoosier pays 11% in local and State taxes and that we are tied for 11th in the County for States with the HIGHEST tax burden. Our tax burden is higher then California’s if you compare it by percentage of income…
Mike Sylvester
I think the parts about Child Services and a special tax for judicial mandates are interesting. These are areas where costs are largely out of the hands of county officials, so making the state or a special tax fund higher costs in these areas makes a certain amount of sense. I haven’t thought them through very carefully yet, so there could well be compelling counter-arguments to leave things alone in these areas.
I don’t disagree, Mike, but folks aren’t asking for less services – and they’re not too happy with new ideas for revenue. I agree philosophically with you, but on the other hand I think it’s more important that local government run a balanced budget.