From the Indianapolis Star;
Bruce Busch has had enough.
For years, property tax assessors have gradually increased the assessed values of the two side-by-side homes he owns in the Eastside’s Irvington neighborhood. But the latest assessment was the final straw.
The house he and his wife live in was assessed at $153,800, up 9 percent. That’s roughly 50 percent more than he figures he could get for the house on the open market. The house next door, which he rents to his sister-in-law, saw its assessed value jump nearly 23 percent, to $86,900.
The increases — which could push up his annual property tax bill by nearly $500 — are more than he can stomach. Or afford.
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So for the first time in his life, he’s filed a property tax assessment appeal on his century-old home, joining many others in high-assessment clusters in Irvington and several Near-Northside neighborhoods, including the revamped Fall Creek Place and the still-redeveloping Kennedy-King. Homeowners in wealthier Meridian-Kessler and Butler-Tarkington also are launching appeals in dense clusters, with swaths of the Northside averaging increases of more than 9 percent.
An Indianapolis Star analysis of new assessments in the eight-county metro area found that portions of those neighborhoods experienced among the largest increases, sometimes double-digit percentages. Metro-wide, they accounted for seven of the 10 clusters with the highest average increases.
The largest average residential increase — nearly 13 percent — hit an area centered on southern Johnson County’s Nineveh Township.
But the bulk of the impact of last year’s reassessment is being felt in Marion County neighborhoods, and lower-income enclaves in Irvington and the Near-Northside are among those facing the likelihood of higher tax bills due to higher property assessments.
That’s because even if tax rates stay flat, they are multiplied by the higher home assessment, expanding the owner’s tax exposure. And recently enacted property tax caps, which set a maximum tax rate for an owner’s primary home at 1 percent of its assessed value, don’t protect against the effects of increasing assessments.
Last year’s reassessment was every Indiana county’s first comprehensive survey in a decade and included visits to every property — which likely means many homeowners’ increases are justified, simply reflecting improvements from years earlier.
Then there are pockets, including where the Busches live, on Arlington Avenue at Irvington’s eastern edge, that seemingly defy explanation.
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See the full article here:
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013303100022
