Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Township Trustee Foregoes Collecting Property Taxes

From the Northwest Indiana Times:

A township trustee in northeastern Indiana won't be collecting any property taxes this year, saying the township has plenty of money in the bank.

DeKalb County's Union Township ended 2011 with $257,000 in operating fund reserves and about $157,000 in its poor relief fund, enough to last more than five years without collecting taxes, Trustee Craig Bassett told The Star of Auburn for a story Wednesday ( http://bit.ly/JyRx0v).

Those surpluses have been built up over many years and changes in state rules enable the township not to collect taxes, Bassett said.

"Now, we can lower or zero our tax levy for a fund without being locked into that levy forever," he said.

The large surpluses held by some of the roughly 1,000 township governments around the state have come under fire from Gov. Mitch Daniels and others who have unsuccessfully pushed in recent years for legislators to consolidate or eliminate townships.

Bassett said he would support more limits on township tax revenues.
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Read more: http://www.nwitimes.com/news/state-and-regional/indiana/ne-indiana-township-collecting-no-taxes-this-year/article_dc89eb2b-4b95-5525-a44f-adb036c5ffb7.html#ixzz1t5YKCUzP