Working Family and Property Taxes

The local officials will spread the property tax increase amongst the working families and retired seniors of lower valued homes. How will this take place? A home owned by a senior citizen, that is valued at $40,000 will see an increase in their property value. Although homes may not be selling in these neighborhood, the increase is needed to offset the homestead deduction for homeowners. The homestead deduction is a tax break provided by the State of Indiana to homeowners. The deduction can be as much as $45,000 depending of the value of the home. After the deduction, local officials calculates the property tax.

However to maximize the amount of property tax collected, local officials will artificially increase the home values by taking into account the homestead deduction. By artificially increasing the value of the home, it recaptures the deduction given to the homeowners from the State of Indiana. With this manipulating of the numbers, local official will tout that there was a increase in the homestead deduction bu tin fact reduced the deduction provided by the homestead deduction. So a home valued at $40,000 reduced by a homestead deduction to $20,000 taxable value will see their home value artificially raised above the $40,000 Why, you say? The answer from IDLFG:

Governments will still have to fully fund payments on debt, lease, or rental agreements regardless of any reduction in collection due to the Circuit Breaker. If local government spending exceeds that two percent cap, the government unit will have to seek other non-property tax sources of revenue or reduce spending to offset any loss. The goal of the Circuit Breaker is to help Hoosiers by ensuring they don’t pay more than 2 percent of their property value in taxes.

And part of the increase in the tax payment for those living in the Tax Incremental Districts will be squirreled away in that famous general fund, for the hotel, baseball stadium...you'll get the picture some enough. Because your local officials are banking on you not seeing the ball.

2006-2007 Reassessment

If you did not believe what I had to say about local officials screwing over you in the last reassessment read the comment from a former deputy budget director I do income taxes, and it never fail to amaze me how many folks don't understand the distribution of their earnings on the W-2 form.

So these same folks will be taken advantage of by the property assessment process. The words elected officials like to throw around, its too complicated. Translation, we have willy-nilly increased your property values to put money into other accounts beyond what we are legally required to do. But none of your property taxes will be used to build a hotel, stadium or Harrison Square wink wink. And the reason you are paying more is because of the half billion building improvement for the children of Fort Wayne Community School. Damn those non learning children of Fort Wayne Community School, closed the damn schools. (stomp stomp,sigh). Don't believe them, its because of Big Dick, Mayor Dick that is, projects.

The assessors offices are mailing out form 11 R/A. I know many of you want to believe that your leaders are honest people !!! But be warned because your new tax bill will increase and it has nothing to do with Fort Wayne Community School but greed from your local officials to build Harrison Square.

This notification form 11 R/A is an important part of the reassessment because it starts the second phase of the reassessment. The second phase involves a review process by the property owners on the accuracy of the assessors assessment. Any property owner wanting to challenge the accuracy of the assessment must file an appeal in writing for review of the assessment on form 130 or form 133 within 45 days of the notification.

The notification of assessment of land and structures form should have reached property owners by now. The form is to give notice to homeowner as to the assessment values of their home. After duping the public with over assessment by just multiplying the true value times three back during the previous assessment. This time the assessment is an add on value that is being calling a trend assessment value. After finding out that many fraudulent assessment were conducted and the taxpayers would be able to argue against the increase in sale by providing evidences of the over assessment a new scheme is in the work.

The scheme is called trend assessment value, market value in use. The trend assessment in determining the value of your property based on what property similar to your property would sell for. That's right you may not be able to get the amount that others would get for their homes, but your home will be taxed the same. The value is based on the real estate market in your neighborhood between January 1, 2004 through December 31, 2005 sales prices. the reason why trend assessment because they have found a lot of incompetent folks running the assessment offices. That why the assessor office is giving you a plain Jane letter to fill out instead of the form 130 because, it does not want tax payers being too informed!

Hello, was not the value of the fraudulent over assessment of many of the homes in 2003 taken into account on determining the value during the 2004-2005 time period. Of course not. However a letter is being substituted locally for the appeal challenge form 130 or 133. Property owners have the right to appeal this assessment by submitting a letter to the their Township Assessor. The letter ( replacing the old form 130 or 133) must have the land area assigned number, the address and their name and mailing address on the letter.

The letter challenging the assessment must be filed with the Township Assessor office within forty-five (45) date of the mailing of the letter, not the from the day you receive it. IT is important to keep copy of your letter challenging the assessment. Make copies. There is no cost to file an appeal, but many folks are out there taking advantage of folks by simply charging large sum for during the paperwork.

The Township Assessor has thirty days to contact the homeowner and arrange a preliminary conference. This conference is to resolve any issues concerning the accuracy of the assessment, if the issues are not resolved than a more formal conference is scheduled. However, if you do not hear from the the Township, the home owner can request a hearing with the county Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeal by contacting the County Assessor.


Property owners should obtain their property record card and a digital photo of their property from the county assessor office or the township assessor office.

I like Form 130 because it requires specification that can be used as evidence supporting your claim that the selling price of your property is not consistent with similar property should your appeal moves through to the Tax Court. Form 130 has a section for the date and time that your appeal was filed. Also form 130 has a section for a conference. A conference must be scheduled 30 days after the appeal is filed.

The conference is a meeting between the two parties—the assessor and the property owner to work out the disagreement. With sound evidence that support your claim on the selling price, it should be enough for the assessor to reduce your property value and the reduction recorded in writing. If a property owner is not satisfied at this level of the appeal review it will go to the next level of review. But no matter the outcome, agreements or disagreement are recorded on the conference page of form 130.

Last year, most unsuspecting property owners were offered informal discussions by the assessor office, and a generic form that lacked the detailed guidance offered by form 130 or 133. Big mistake!!! Should get it in writing, and have a copy of it because they will (or is that may )lose it. This circumvents the property owner’s right to file an appeal and a record of the discussion with the assessor.

One lady was given a copy of a reassessment phone note as proof of her appeal. Others left behind phone numbers in hopes of getting a returned phone call. Some filled out orange forms leaving information to schedule an appointment to discuss their assessment. Some landlords with multiple properties are being offered off deals, for example a 300 percent increase reduced to 30 percent. A sweet deal, that can provide one explanation for the low appeals from trusting property owners looking for a break from the over assessment of their properties.

The other form that can be used for the appeal process is 133. But form 133 is only for simply errors, and can be quickly corrected administratively, but the form needs to be filed for record keeping purposes. If an error has been found from the property record a claim for correction can go back at least three years. The auditor office should have this form.

The appeal process is the state’s oversight of the assessor office that gives a voice to property owners in the reassessment process. The court argues that no one knows the property better than the property owners, in granting the property owners a say in the second phase of the reassessment. The appeal must be filed by May 24, 2004 to meet the 45 days deadline.

Those who did not receive their notice of assessment of land and structures will not be allowed to file an appeal this year, they are instructed that they can not appeal until 2008. However, the law allows for filing an appeal without the form 11 to do so on or before May 10 of the year of assessment:

(

d) A taxpayer may appeal a current real property assessment in a year even if the taxpayer has not received a notice of assessment in the year. If an appeal is filed on or before May 10 of a year in which the taxpayer has not received notice of assessment, a change in the assessment resulting from the appeal is effective for the most recent assessment date. If the appeal is filed after May 10, the change becomes effective for the next assessment date

But that's not what your local elected leaders are telling you. This is not legal advice, I'm just typing out loud.

Credit for High end Home Owners Imposed by the State of Indiana

Those homeowners should be happy with the circuit breaker rule. The reason why because the state know the greed of the local officials and will only allow two percent of the value of your expensive home. What does this mean? It means the local government will have to be conscious of the two percent cap. From the IDLGF website

The circuit breaker provides property owners with a credit for any amount of taxes over 2 percent. For example, the maximum amount of property taxes a homeowner would pay on a $100,000 house would be $2,000. In this example, the credit limits the tax liability for the property to the 2 percent cap of $2,000.

The impact the Circuit Breaker may have on local governments and taxpayers will not be fully known until the annual adjustments of assessed values are completed later this year. With the new assessed values, counties and the state will be better able to fully calculate the impact of the Circuit Breaker.

But warning, these same local official could increase your tax rate to met the two percent cap. Oh my cooking the book is such a fun game to play with the tax payers.

Positive Liberty

I requested writers and so far have not received any responses. However, Positive Liberty has a carnival of citizens by Jason Kuznicki blogging this morning on religion and state.

Credo writes on Barack Obama and Illinois’ segregationist history at Fort Wayne African-American Independent Woman. I’ve often seen the claim that there need to be more local-interest blogs, and that we could learn many interesting things from citizen-journalists with an eye to local events. This is just one example of what I hope will be a trend in that direction.

Media Shuttle presents a list of bloggers.

Investing in your political future

In this morning paper:

Steve Shine, local Republican chairman, said the Democrats may have won some township seats, but the Republican money was well-spent in locking up every countywide elected office. Read more click here

“Being able to raise a quarter-million dollars as a party shows the public has faith, confidence and a commitment to our political organization,” he said. “People believe in our moderate-to-conservative philosophy.”

More than 10 percent of the Republicans’ total earnings came from Ronda Hanning of Fort Wayne that included $27,696 of in-kind and cash donations. The party also received numerous donations from elected officials and candidates, including $11,565 from Sheriff Ken Fries’ campaign account, $9,200 from County Commissioner Linda Bloom’s campaign account and $9,490 from county Prosecutor Karen Richards’ campaign account.

Circuit Breaker

If you are wondering why so much talk about Harrison Square and Fort Wayne Community Schools cost, it came in the mail for some homeowners. The property tax bill with increase. The assessor office has until March 12, 2007 to bill these notices of a reassessment. The last reassessment saw the willingness of dishonest assessment and the state government stepped in and imposed a circuit breaker rule.

The circuit breaker rule prevent local politicians from gouging property owners with increase in property tax during a reassessment year. The circuit breaker caps local tax rates. This prevent local official from stockpiling additional revenue beyond the always padded budget. The circuit breaker rule began necessary after the local politician created a great deal of wealth from the reassessment to collect revenue that was badly needed.

To get around the circuit breaker rule, many homes are over assessed by local officals (not appraisers) to collect additional funds. Many homeowners do not challenge the over assessment because their tax payments are included in the mortgage. Because the property tax payments are included in the mortgage many of these homeowners are unaware that there is a reassessment that increase their property tax payment which impacts the payoff cost of their home. Furthermore, without receiving the 11 R/A form these homeowners are unaware they have a right to challenge this increase in their home value.


Other homeowners will not receive form 11 R/A the notice of assessment of land and structures. If they do not have the form 11, they will not be allowed to file an appeal this year. In not allowing these homeowners to file appeal contrary to state law in accordance to IC 6-1.1-15-1(d):

d) A taxpayer may appeal a current real property assessment in a year even if the taxpayer has not received a notice of assessment in the year. If an appeal is filed on or before May 10 of a year in which the taxpayer has not received notice of assessment, a change in the assessment resulting from the appeal is effective for the most recent assessment date. If the appeal is filed after May 10, the change becomes effective for the next assessment date.

, the assessor's office is able to gouged these customers without being questioned.

The local officials will tout the increase in the homestead deduction from $35,000 to $45,000. However, a closer look will reveal that the increase in the property values will offset the increase in the homestead deduction along with the tax rate.

In other words, if the homestead credit stayed at $35,000 and the property value was not increased, and the tax rate was at the highest rate, a homeowner property tax would not increase that much.

For example my home increase by $12,000 and not a single home was sold in the neighborhood. As a matter of fact many of the homes are sitting empty because of homeowners and the renter are unable to find buyers or tenants. Of that $12,000 I will have to pay an increase of tax of at least $6,000. Now that is without a tax rate increase. The property tax payment will increase more if the tax rate increases from the last assessment. So how much did the assessment help me? It didn't. It's called the shell game.

So now you know why so much talk about Harrison Square and Fort Wayne Community Schools. The reassessment was the problem and the projects were the solutions to why this year bills are so high. It sounds like Bill Palace owner will fare better than most of us. Bill Palace was reported to have been sold for $2.4 million dollars. If there is going to be a remonstrance, it should start at the auditor's office.


Hey you elected these people!