Joe Gomeztagle found his babysitter crying, and asked her what was the matter. . I interviewed Gomeztagle and discovered that the babysitter was going to lose her home because of the taxes, as for the reason why she was crying. Gomeztagle decided to help the babysitter and little did Joe know he would turn property taxation on its head in the process. (See also Journal Gazette June 27, 2004. Indiana Tax Court’s Judge Thomas Fisher ruled against the good old boys network way of valuing property by cutting deals for friends and overtaxing the masses. And the good ole boys have been resisting every since the ruling and has even cost some in the masses to lose their homes. Indiana assessors were notified that the reassessment process would start May, 1999. New rules promulgating property valuation were put placed to be used by assessors on June 2001. Guidance for following the new regulations was to be completed by the assessment date of March 1, 2002.
All of the changes were to insure that property owners paying the new market value rate on May, 2003 would go uninterrupted. In Fort Wayne, it the May 2003 date was not met. By the end of September, 2003, the new market rate was not received to issue tax bills.
Judge Fishers deemed had we followed the law in the first place, perhaps, we might not have found ourselves having to meet the deadline for reassessing property value. Judge Fisher is referring to requirement that the property tax to be a tax on property wealth, The old ways of assessing property were in violation of the provision that the “general assembly shall provide, by law, for a uniform and equal rate of property assessment and taxation and shall prescribe regulations to secure a just valuation for taxation of all property, both real and personal. ” Fort Wayne was not interested in the Constitution, it was all about money.
There was big money to be made and Fort Wayne was going to make that money. The State had increase the homestead credit from $6,000 to $35,000. The increase in the homestead credit was to buffer the change to market value for property owners. Fort Wayne decided to take advantage of the homeowners and tripled the values of homes before applying the increase in the homestead credit. This would keep the guarantee locals would receive the full benefit of the reassessment had the state increased the homestead credit from $6,000 to $35,000.
Those who had never filed for the exemption at $6,000 which was increased to $35,000 were hit the hardest by the triple increase in property value. These homeowners without the homestead exemption could apply for it but would not get the exemption until a year later. The first bill for property owners with the stick shock increase were not mailed until after February 2004. Not only was the increase a surprise, but the next bill was due to come out in May 2004, and the dateline for filing the homestead exemption was March, 2004. This allowed Fort Wayne to take advantage of those who did not file a homestead exemption for two straight years. The delaying of the tax bills for two years only served to confused the public on just what was occurring under the new assessment and who was responsible for the mess.
The delay served another purpose and that was to prevent homeowners from meeting the timeliness of filing for appeals. The assessor office supposedly has completed the first phase of the reassessment as ordered by the State of Indiana. The State’s order for the assessor office was to determine new values on property located in Indiana. The assessor office decided to notify homeowners of the new values with a tax bill and notify businesses with the mailing of form 11. This notification is an important part because it starts the second phase of the reassessment. The second phase involves a review process by the property owners on the accuracy of the assessment. Any property owner wanting to challenge the accuracy of the assessment must file an appeal in writing for review of the assessment on form 130 or form 133 within 45 days of the notification.
But a meeting was held among the wealthy of the land. The purpose of the meeting was to give the wealthy more time to express their grievance about the reassessment than the normal allotted time of forty-five days after receiving form 11 with the tax bill. The wealthy were granted invitation to explain that their assessed value would be increased and local officials were willing to negotiate for a deal.
After winning the support of the wealthy of the land, the second stage of the manipulation of the masses was to convince the middle class homeowners that their assessed value of their homes would increase but so would the low income homeowners whom property had consistently depreciated in value over the years. So by increasing low income homeowners' homes to market value that would reduce the amount that middle class homeowners property would increase. The scheme sounded good to the middle class homeowners who bit the bullet for the increases in their property value. After seeing the increases on their tax bill, they believed that it could have been worse. Not having to fully to share the bear the burden of taxation alone, the middle class homeowners were silenced into complacency believing the lies told to them by the assessors.
What was forgotten during this manipulation of the masses was the fact that generally during a reassessment the homeowner tax rate will be reduced and the property tax bill will remain the same, go down slightly or rise slightly. However, because the tax rate has not been set, the middle class homeowners' belief was that their tax bill would go down but it didn't. Now here it is 2007, the taxpayers are being screwed once again as their property value has increase again.
You can appeal. The appeal process is the state’s oversight of the assessor office that gives a voice to property owners in the reassessment process. This is one reason why little information on the procedure for filing has been provided by the assessor’s office to property owners. The court argues that no one knows the property better than the property owners, in granting the property owners a say in the second phase of the reassessment. I filed in 2004 an appeal. This is what I did, but things may have changed since, so you may need to read the law on how to file an appeal. Three copies of the appeal form were required but the appeal itself did not cost me for filing. Property owners should obtain their property record card and a digital photo of their property from the county assessor office or the township assessor office.
After reviewing the drawing of their property or the description of their property, homeowners can use either form 133 or form 130 to file an appeal. Form 130 requires specification that can be used as evidence supporting your claim that the selling price of your property is not consistent with similar properties should your appeal moves through to the Tax Court. Form 130 has a section for the date and time that your appeal was filed. Also form 130 has a section for a conference. A conference must be scheduled 30 days after the appeal is filed.
The conference is a meeting between the two parties—the assessor and the property owner to work out the disagreement. With sound evidence that support your claim on the selling price, it should be enough for the assessor to reduce your property value and the reduction recorded in writing. If a property owner is not satisfied at this level of the appeal review it will go to the next level of review. But no matter the outcome, agreements or disagreement are recorded on the conference page of form 130.
The form 130 may no longer be available and may have been replaced with a generic form, but collecting the evidence is still the most important issue before filing whatever form that assessor office gives you. This is not legal advice.
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