Theodore Kim of the Indy Star is reporting that the Senate Tax and Fiscal Policy Committee has moved, by a vote of 12-0, a property tax relief bill with measures proposed by Senator Kenley.
The complex plan, offered by Senate Tax Chairman Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville in several lengthy amendments to a House bill, would shift some local school, child welfare and juvenile incarceration costs from property tax rolls to the state.
The plan also would temporarily increase the homestead tax credit; give counties the power to raise local income taxes to pay specifically for property tax relief; and create a local control board to review local construction projects that are paid through property taxes.
The devil, as always, is in the details, but the provisions described in the article all sound like reasonable measures. For my part, property taxes don’t seem to make a great deal of sense any more. They are not as good a measure of one’s income or wealth as they once were, particularly back in the agrarian days where property taxation generally has its roots. I think they still have their place, but we need to rely on them much, much less.
By contrast, I find Jim Bowery’s Net Asset Tax proposal to be the one of the most interesting tax restructuring proposals I’ve read. (The paper is long and can be heavy going; Bowery presented a highly condensed and accessible statement of premises that helps orient one to the longer work.)
It is also the only single-tax proposal I’ve seen that makes any sense to me, but sadly that probably also makes it as infeasible to achieve via a legislative process as anything Neal Boortz would get behind.
At the risk of sounding thick, why not just let local government do as they please with taxes?
I just don’t understand why the state has to be involved and is so interested in keeping taxes down. I mean, I can vote out my local mayor/commissioners if they raise taxes what I consider “too high”.
Joe, while I agree w/ your sentiment I’m frustrated by the experience in Fort Wayne. Namely that the local school board members, elected by miniscule vote totals, have recently voted to raise property taxes by a half BILLION dollars. They did this with little-to-no regard for the community as a whole – after all they are a special interest group.
So I welcome nearly ANY legislation that might help w/ matters…
Jeff, I’m OK with the local control board if people want a safety valve for property taxes… I would think, however, that if folks are really upset about it, that local school board is going to get voted out.
I just don’t understand the rest of it; the need for the state to authorize certain taxes. If Carmel wants to drop property taxes & replace them with income taxes, more power to them. If Zionsville wants to keep small property taxes, don’t have an income tax, and instead have a food/beverage tax, more power to them.
Further, why not let each town decide how much power the school boards should have in regards to taxing? Is there a reason the school boards can set their own tax rate? I suspect there’s a historical reason I don’t understand, so I am more than open to education. I mean, there are plenty of folks who lose interest in funding education as soon as their kids graduate, so I suspect that’s part of it.
How can we call an elected school board a ‘special interest group’ Isn’t the general definition of ‘special interest’ a well-funded,single-issue group,non-elected, who want to trade money for special treatment in legislation? I dont know anything about the question in Ft Wayne being discussed,but it seems to me that a school board is pure americana grassroots democracy..
I don’t want to argue the semantics of “special interest” but they are certainly a SINGLE-issue group as their focus, and rightfully so, is the educational system of that district.
Here, they do not take into account the impact of raising taxes on individuals or businesses. In fact, I would argue that they are not qualified to assess those impacts and they are certainly unwilling to listen to people who are.
The idea that they can be voted out is fine and dandy but the fact is by that time the damage is done. Many people don’t even understand that the local school board HAS the authority to raise their taxes. They automatically assume that they need mayor/council approval in order to do so.
It’s an unfortunate situation when elected officials, who are not focused on the community in general and are elected w/ so few votes, can impact the community in such a significant way. And the remonstrance process that’s in place to challenge these expenditures is a disaster as well…
To me, the issue that they’re voted in by so few votes is bunk. If 80/90% of the population doesn’t care enough to vote, then they deserve what they get. If they got in by one vote, well, that’s how the political process works.
If folks want school board officials who won’t spend lots of money, then vote for school board officials who say they won’t spend lots of money. If there aren’t any, run yourself.
Tell me about these local control boards? Who is it comprised of? Appointees by a mayor/county officials? Elected officials? It could well be worse if these folks are appointees, not elected officials, and they can TRULY do what they want because they don’t answer to anyone. It almost seems like you could end up with two school boards that will accomplish nothing. What’s going to be their motivation?
Just playing devil’s advocate.
It’s easy to say it’s bunk when you’re not getting hit w/ the massive tax increase but I do take your point. The point I was trying to make is that it’s ALWAYS poor public policy to have a single-interest group (elected or otherwise) be the final say on taxes – especially the size we’re talking about. In fact I had never heard of such a thing until I had moved here.
I’m not sure about the control boards proposed in the legislation in question. I do agree that only elected officials should be in the position to affect tax rates. Currently Allen County is looking to resurrect the Tax Adjustment Board which would consist of county council, county commissioners and city council members. The TAB would only be able to reject tax increases and not actually raise them. Unfortunately, the last I heard was that the state essentially said they couldn’t even do that – basically all they could do was review budgets and recommend changes.
Perhaps this latest legislation is a way to allow for the TAB to have more authority? I honestly don’t know. My original post was made only to suggest that something needs to be done about property tax reform – I don’t know enough about the legislation mentioned above to know if it will truly help or not…
The local control board is comprised of county elected officials in fiscal positions (auditor, etc.) as well as two elected “citizen members”. There are no political appointees on the board.