From the Northwest Indiana Times:
The Lake County auditor's office is in the third and final year of separating homeowners with legal tax deductions from the undeserving.
"We have cleaned up 50,000 improper homestead exemptions, and we are going after the lost taxes now," Auditor Peggy Katona said last week.
She said purging tax rolls of ineligible tax breaks relieves legitimate taxpayers. They otherwise are burdened with paying millions of dollars in taxes others have dodged by claiming more than the single homestead deduction allowed on an individual's principal residence.
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Porter County Auditor Robert Wichlinski said there are about 9,000 homeowners who have yet to send in their pink forms, but he isn't eager to delete homestead deductions.
"My understanding from the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance is that we can't just take them off," Wichlinski said. "It's not automatic. After we have gone through three years of due diligence, we would still be required to contact those folks one more time and certify to the state we have done that before we can receive permission to take the homestead flag off the (homeowner's) file."
The state Legislature mandated the pink form verification process to create a statewide database that will be used to ensure people aren't avoiding taxes improperly by claiming multiple homestead credits on multiple properties.
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Hobart attorney David N. Gilyan, working as a consultant for the Lake County auditor, said he is preparing a list of thousands of property owners whom his staff has identified as homestead deduction violators.
"We will proceed to collect any taxes owing," he said. "Some are outside the law because they are not really aware of it, but whether it was done on purpose or not, they have to comply."
Gilyan said some people may have homestead deductions on rental houses.
"Maybe they didn't know it was on there when they bought it, and they may have thought the auditor was supposed to take it off; well that's what we are calling about," he said.
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http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/lake-co-targets-tax-break-violators-in-porter-co-still/article_4a843ff6-2837-5913-9bde-a0987e7aaeaf.html
