From Indiana Public Media:
Hoosier farmers are halfway to blocking a property-tax change they say would cost them millions of dollars. Along with the estimated market value of their land, farmers are taxed based on the productivity of their soil.
In 2011, the Department of Local Government Finance rewrote the formula for calculating productivity.
Indiana Farm Bureau spokesman Bob Kraft complains the formula takes into account factors he argues are already a part of calculating the base value of the land.
“They factored in things such as increased productivity due to farmers‘ management practices, technological advances in farming, some of the hybrids and the genetically modified crops,” Kraft says.
The Farm Bureau has been lobbying for a formula that would compare soil productivity to a state average, and leave management practices out of the equation.
Legislators ordered a one-year delay of the new rules last year. The Senate has already unanimously approved a second delay, along with an order to work with Purdue on a new formula which legislators would have to approve.
Kraft says the old formula would boost tax bills by $57.
http://indianapublicmedia.org/news/farmers-lobby-property-tax-formula-44368/
