Indiana homeowners might catch break on tax bills

INDIANAPOLIS -- When homes throughout Indiana are reassessed this year, property owners may not be hit as hard as expected if elected assessors do everything they can to hold down tax bills.\nHomeowners have been told the average bill could rise anywhere from 13 to 33 percent. But a recent study concluded that the increase could be much smaller -- 3 to 5 percent -- if elected assessors work within the law to aid property owners.\nIf they go further and fail to abide by the state's new minimum standards for valuing property, it could mean even more favorable treatment for homeowners.\nThat would fly in the face of what the reassessment is supposed to do: make property tax bills for similar properties more equal, as the Indiana Supreme Court has ordered.\n"I think assessors are going to do whatever the heck they want," Karl Berron, a lobbyist for the Indiana Association of Realtors, told The Indianapolis Star for a story published Sunday. "If the state does nothing, the system's not going to get fixed."\nThe reassessment is the first since 1995 and the first since the state's high court declared the current system unconstitutional because owners of similarly priced homes were paying wildly different tax bills.\nThe big question is whether state tax officials will have the know-how and political will to stop assessors from going too far. Residential assessments could remain out of whack if many of the 1,100 assessing officials are selective about how they use information from home sales in assessments.\n"If the state looks the other way and taxpayers are uninformed, you can get just as bad a result as you would in the current system," said Larry DeBoer, a Purdue University economist who has researched potential effects of the new market value system.\nThe potential for exploiting court-ordered reforms could force state officials to keep a close watch over assessors. If they fall short, the reassessment might not satisfy the Supreme Court, sparking more lawsuits.\nGov. Frank O'Bannon's estimate that the average homeowner's bill would rise 13 percent assumes local officials will perform their jobs flawlessly and without regard for who will pay more. Critics say that's unlikely, given the big increases many homeowners could see.