Journal Gazette Assesses Property Tax Unfairness

Following up on the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute's terrific work on property tax inequities, the editorial board at the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette is beating the drum too:

Lawmakers can’t continue to dip into the state budget to pay for tax relief, nor can they reshape the state’s tax structure using a system that is fundamentally flawed. Whatever they do in the current session, their first step must be to fix the assessment system.

As the FPI documented in an October 2005 report, there is dramatic inconsistency between the way properties are assessed across jurisdictions, and sometimes even within them: some properties are assessed well below their actual value, while others are taxed at more than their actual worth. Repairing this inequity should be a top priority for the 2007 session: lawmakers can't make the property tax fairer without first ensuring that assessors know how much homes and businesses are really worth. Read the rest of the Journal-Gazette's editorial here.