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Sunday, April 11, 2004
Indiana Law - Newspapers' Property Tax Information Aids
Marion County. The Indianapolis Star has made available an online Marion County property tax database since last year, when our new property tax assessments came out. The information provided is useful, but limited. What I really wanted to see (and in fact wrote to the Star about) was a calculator that would allow the taxpayer to see exactly how their tax was calculated, and to do "what if" calculations.
Allen County. Some other major counties are just coming in with their property tax results and their local papers are just putting information online for their readers. The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is providing a tax info service (similar to that of the IndyStar) for Allen County taxpayers, with this preface:
Because of delays caused by reassessment, tax bills for Allen County property taxes payable in 2003 were not calculated until recently. Taxpayers have paid bills based on 70 percent of the bill from the year before. Final bills for whatever remains are to be mailed by April 8 and will be due May 10. As a public service to taxpayers who have waited more than a year to find out what their tax bill would be after reassessment, The Journal Gazette is posting all 147,000 bill amounts online from data provided by the Allen County auditor and treasurer's offices. [my emphasis]Both the Marion and Allen County papers' information allows the user to draw comparisons with similar properties.
[Allen County Update] It turns out the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel has additional information. This page allows you to find property tax information for Allen County in 2002 and 2003: "The 2002 values and taxes are before the countywide reassessment. The 2003 values and taxes are after the county's reassessment. How much each property owner will pay in taxes in 2004 is based on the 2003 values, and are available here." Further, you can find prices for properties sold in Allen County since 1998.
Further, via this page, you may search Allen County tax warrants by address, by business name (DBA, or doing business as) or last name of the person to whom the warrant was issued, or by warrent type.
Lake County. But I was blown away this morning when I found the Lake County Tax Estimator provided by the Munster NWI Times. It starts with a much better database of information than the Star has made available as its end product. And once you have an assessed valuation, you can use the tax calculator to get an idea of how each of the provisions of the formula impacts your bottom line.
[Lake County Update] Here is the Gary Post Tribune's Lake County Tax Estimator introductory page. Here is the calculator itself, which is more of a "black box" model, making it not nearly as useful, in my view, as the Times' version. Today's Tribune includes this "Editor’s note":
The Post-Tribune’s online Lake County tax calculator — www.post-trib.com — is updated to calculate more accurately the tax rates on homes assessed at under $70,000. The calculator estimates a full year’s tax bill for 2003. Actual amounts owed vary by taxpayer depending on deductions and how much has already been paid.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 11, 2004 11:11 AM
Posted to Indiana Law